Unboxing
Four months into podcasting, I realize how I'm still gripping onto old ways of controlling and trying to squeeze into boxes that no longer fit.
Outside our family home before renovations 🏠
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This is Divine Interruption.
I'm Sarah Hildreth Rankin.
So I'm coming to you today with just a different episode than I thought I was going to show up with.
I've actually just been struggling lately in terms of telling my stories in the way that I want or allowing them to come to me and then just feel right.
I don't know.
You know, with the creative process, sometimes it goes up and it goes down and it goes sideways.
And I really had a lot of things.
I have so many things I want to talk about and share.
But a lot of it just wasn't feeling right this week.
I'd get things and fits and starts and I'd be like, oh, inspired.
And I'd be like, yes, I think this is what I want to talk about.
And then it would just kind of wane.
And then I'd be really disappointed.
I'm like, no, come on, come on.
Like I felt inspired.
I want that energy back so that I can talk about this, so that I can create what I want to create, so that I can move through these experiences and share.
But I realized that I was really forcing it and controlling.
So instead of going down that route and just banging my head against the wall and telling myself, no, like, let's just sit down, make this happen.
Like, come on.
Instead of going that route, I realized, I'm just going to talk about what I'm experiencing in that process.
Because that is what I told myself anyway, this medium was going to be for to just express myself, and I don't need to bottle this all up and feel it all and move through it alone.
Like, what if I just share this?
And maybe there's some value in that.
I don't know.
But that's what brings me here today.
I'm like, no, instead of forcing this, I'm just going to talk about it.
So maybe this is like a four-month check-in, essentially from when I started talking into the microphone and where I'm at and what that looks like.
And what I recognized in just this week with not being able to produce what I wanted to produce, trying to control my creative process, was that I'm trying to control everything else as well.
Still, like, this is a way of being that is so ingrained that it is still coming up for me again and again.
And I'm recognizing that I think I should be able to show up in a certain way in all areas of my life.
Like, I should be able to sit down at my desk and just create an episode, no problem.
Like, I should be able to make that happen.
I should be able to stand in a crowd of strangers and just turn on my charm and have amazing conversations and just be amazing.
I should wake up in the morning and just be able to engage in like a 10-step health routine.
In all these areas of my life, I still feel like I need to be controlling myself.
And there's awareness there.
When I'm bumping up against this, there's awareness of like, eh, that doesn't work for me anymore.
You know?
Trying to do the things in the way that I used to do them does not work.
And honestly, they haven't worked for probably about 10 years now.
You know, the ways that I was relating to myself and relating to the world, it doesn't work.
And so, I'm still coming up against this discomfort, where I know it's not right, and it doesn't feel great, and it's really obvious, right?
When something's out of alignment, it just feels so gross.
I'm like, ugh, this is so yucky.
Like, it's a very strong feeling, but I don't always know what to do differently, or I don't know that in-between space of, okay, well, I'm not doing that anymore, but how do I do it differently?
So, I'm just recognizing, like, I am still learning this is possibly like a lifelong thing, or where I'm at right now.
I am in the process, and it is challenging, and that is okay.
Because if we think about it in terms of a lifetime, if the only way I've ever been has been in controlling, and in trying to make things happen, and in living in all these little boxes where I put on a mask, or I have taught myself and learned how to fit in properly, and how to produce things, and how to be a certain way, and how to perform, then if I've been operating that way my entire life, that is a lifelong way of being.
It's okay that now that I'm on the other side of that, and I have undone so much, that it would be hard.
I do think I'm expecting myself to be further along, or just better.
Maybe that's not the right word, but I just expect so much of myself that I want to skip this step.
I want to skip the growth step.
I'm like, but I already understand it doesn't work.
I've already healed myself internally in my mind, but in actually doing it in practice, it is so much different, right?
It's an organic thing that I'm realizing, too, cannot really be controlled.
And what has come to me was just this analogy around a house.
I kept seeing this house, and I was waking up in the middle of the night, I'm like, I'm like, in this house, and this house is me.
And then there's different parts of the house.
I don't want to get too in-depth because I can get lost here.
I live kind of in a more metaphorical space, so I realize that I can keep going with metaphor and really get maybe bogged down in the details.
So I'll try not to do that.
But essentially, I was just seeing this house, I'm like, I am the house.
And inside the house, there are all these boxes, and all of these boxes are housing all of these ways of being.
Every experience that I've had has come in through the front door of my house, and then those things have come inside, and I've needed somewhere to put them.
And every experience or trauma or interaction I've had comes inside, and it needs somewhere to go.
And my mind has tried to make sense of those experiences and what's happened.
And so we start putting them into piles and boxes.
And it's like, okay, well, that thing would go there, and that's how I am over there.
This is what it is to be an employee for a company and have a boss.
Okay, that goes in this box.
That's how we are over there.
This is my sexual self, and in there are all the experiences I've ever had and what I was taught and what I witnessed happen to other people and what I believe about myself.
And that all goes in that box.
This is how I am creatively.
So here I am as the artist.
Okay, every negative experience I've ever had where someone made fun of my work goes in there, as well as every time I was validated for doing something artistic, that goes in there.
And there's some family beliefs in there about what it is to be an artist.
So this house is just filled with these boxes.
And we come into this lifetime, let's say, we assume, because what I feel like I've been doing in the past 10 years is just undoing myself.
So everything I learned and became up until the age of, let's say, 30, was a lot of taking things on, absorbing more, learning and trying to figure out and push through and become something.
I'm like, oh, I'm going to become my best self.
But all of that was based in everything that I'd taken on.
It was all conditioning and experiences that then I put into these boxes that I attributed meaning to.
And so it becomes this big mess.
And I could just see all of these boxes inside of myself.
So for 30 years, I was doing that, collecting more and more and more and more, and stuffing them into these boxes.
My mind's trying to make sense of everything, and I'm trying to fit myself into these boxes of who I need to be, and how I show up in this scenario and that scenario, and becoming more and more full.
But it seemed like after 30, everything slowly started to be undoing.
It was like a recognition of, okay, yeah, actually, I can't live this way.
All these boxes are not working for me anymore.
Like when I try to live this way in this box, it's almost like a mask, right?
What I'm being over here, it stopped working.
It's not feeling good anymore.
It's not fitting.
I feel anger or resentment, or I feel grief.
I'm not being seen for who I actually am, and that is, there's just such a lack of, I don't know, love for self and compassion and joy there, right?
When we're living in these boxes, and we're not actually living authentically.
So then there's this process of undoing, and going back to what and who am I without all of these boxes, right?
I need to empty my house.
Let's get these out of here.
And that is a huge process on its own, right?
Because these boxes, some of them have been there since birth, or we could even say have been inherited from other places.
And if we take this a bit deeper, and we say, okay, even when I'm born into this life, into this body, I actually already come with boxes.
Like, I am not just a clean slate, because there is a foundation that I am born into.
And that runs in our families.
And who did we come from?
And what did we inherit from our family, be it DNA or the physical traits of our body?
Maybe we have certain organs that just don't work, and that runs in our family, like weak livers, or not a strong nervous system.
Those things that we inherit from those who come before us, who we share our blood with.
So I'm almost seeing that as the foundation of the house that comes in with the house.
It's like, when I come in as a baby, I come in with all of this other stuff already pre-programmed in.
And maybe that's a lot of boxes where I feel like I have to fit into, or things that I deal with, or certain patterns or beliefs that I have.
And everybody's is going to be different.
That's what, oh, this is so fascinating to me, because I'm like, everyone is so unique.
We come with such different experiences.
We will share a lot of those, but they are so unique because of these, all these other little things going on.
We're like these little microcosms.
So we come in with, let's say, that inherited foundation, which is like a connection to the earth, right, and to our families and our ancestry.
And then we also come in with that other side of us, our soul self.
So that self that is not of the earth, but that essence, and again, this is my belief system and what makes sense to me, but is that our soul experiences other lifetimes, right, and has had other experiences and traumas and deaths and relationships and has been a part of all these other experiences, and that is our soul.
So we also, because we're connected to our soul, and it's in us, in this lifetime as well, we actually bring in all this soul information as well.
It's like, whoa, okay.
I bring in all these other experiences where maybe I had a lot of traumatic deaths, right, and fears.
And just horrible failed relationships, whatever those other things are, we have all that other information.
So I almost see that as like being, kind of know in the attic, let's say, because it's connected to the cosmos.
That's what I say.
So we have all this stuff coming from the earth, from the bottom, we inherit all these boxes and this information.
And then we also, our soul drops a bunch of other boxes, you know, into the top of our house.
And it's like, okay, you're actually gonna be afraid of mushrooms and you choked to death in one lifetime.
And so you're gonna have a fear of dying that way, whatever it may be.
There's all this other stuff that comes in as well.
So even just at that base level, think of how much we carry with us, right?
And it will shape how we respond to life.
It will shape how we experience the world and what is brought to us and how we deal and manage with situations.
And then we can add on top of that, okay, where is my house located?
Okay, it's in a community or a country or a city that is a part of this culture with these sets of beliefs.
And this is how I fit into that.
And then I also have, let's say, my body.
And what does my body say in that society about my identity and my gender?
How about my social status and how I feel about money?
All of these things too.
We have this whole outside microcosm that then we also come into, that's going to shape us and put us into more boxes and collect more boxes.
And those are three huge things already that we can take into account.
And then we think about even being birthed into the world.
And I've had, you know, and seen, I don't know, experienced parts of my birth.
There's some people who actually specialize in this, where they can regress you through, and you can experience what that birth was like and how it registered in your body as an infant and what that told you about life and who you are and if it's safe or not.
So our birth experience, there's a reason why that is really important.
And that's not something that we control.
We don't control any of these things, right?
And I think that's really important to note.
These are things that are going to be with us.
And it's not our fault that we have these things.
These things are likely meant to shape us and move us and challenge us, obviously.
But if we think about that, then our entrance into the world, what was it like being in a womb?
Was the person who was carrying us, like what was their energy like?
We are absorbing that, and we don't even know we are.
We are just a little being with a little bit of consciousness that is then growing and absorbing this.
So how we get brought into the world matters.
Was it a painful birth?
Was it a traumatic birth?
What happened?
And again, we cannot control this, but it happens to us.
So more boxes go into our house around, what does it mean to be born and be alive?
And what is our connection to that person who carried us?
And what are my first few days of life like?
Even if I am not mentally aware of any of that, even as an adult, most of us are not gonna be able to remember or have any sort of connection with that, but it exists in us.
And then we just continue to absorb everything around us, you know, as a baby, an infant, as a child.
And life is going to keep bringing these experiences to our door.
And especially when we're young, we're likely gonna have a lot of difficulty discerning what is for us and what isn't, or having the mental or physical capacity or capability to choose what's for us.
Things are going to happen to us that are again, out of our control when we are young.
And our house is going to start filling with boxes to try and help us figure out what that meant.
When our dad got mad at us for this thing and we didn't understand, all we felt was how angry he was.
You know, what are we learning in that moment?
What is our body doing?
What is our mind processing?
When my dad does this, what does this mean?
Okay, this means I'm not good, or I'm bad, or I'm unworthy, or dads are angry.
There could be so many things that are going to register and we're going to fill up these boxes.
And over time, maybe in the beginning, it's just stuff, but we're going to need more and more boxes to start organizing all of these experiences that we are taking on.
And our brain's going to need to kind of make sense of who we are in relation to our environment.
And it's doing this to keep us safe.
This is good.
I put this in this box.
This is bad.
Okay, this goes over here.
And over time, it's like we actually start to exist more and more within these boxes.
And maybe we're going to start to really identify with those boxes because they've always been there.
I'm a failed creative person.
I can't draw, like I only paint.
And you know what?
Actually, I'm only creative when I'm on vacation.
This is what's in this box.
And what are in these boxes is starting to inform our behavior and our experience because it's taking up more and more room in our house.
And you know what?
All that's in these boxes are just memories of what's been before, of what we've experienced.
They are not the truth of who we are and what we're capable of, but they are a way of coping and managing with life.
When life came at us and we didn't always have the capacity to discern if it was for us or not, or what to do, how to manage that, we started putting all this information into these boxes.
And it's just memories.
They're all tangled and jumbled like, you know, when you have a jewelry box and it's filled with like ten necklaces and earrings, and it's all mashed together and you're trying to untangle it.
Maybe there's a ball of yarn in there and a bunch of old like, pin tacks and bobby pins.
It's just a mess.
And all these memories and formative experiences, they're not just there in our mind.
They are connected to our body and what our body experience, because we are receiving information in so many ways, through what we hear, through what we feel, through all those extra sensory things as well, where we're not always aware that we are absorbing what is around us.
So our body storing this information is connected there to our nervous system, to our emotions, to our energy systems, and our brain is just trying to hold on.
It's like we need to control and put these in this box so that we can feel safe, because this needs to go somewhere.
This is very overwhelming.
And then it's like, we continue to live like this.
And this house is just filled with boxes.
And we're always sorting and sifting, and I'm moving these boxes around.
I'm trying to find more space to put all this other information.
And it's almost like the more filled it becomes, the harder it is to deviate from living in a box, from being the way that these boxes tell us to be, because there's no more room in the house to shift anything around.
And then there's one day where our house is too filled with boxes, for us to even move.
There's no room to breathe anymore, there's no space just to be, to just sink into ourselves.
There's no room to adapt or do anything different, because we feel really stuck.
And we are a prisoner in our own house, in our minds, our nervous system, our bodies, our emotions.
And as life continues to deliver to our door, as it does, right, we don't control life, we don't control what goes around in the outside world, experiences or big events, whatever they may be, we can handle them less and less.
And if anything deviates from what we have, kind of in those current boxes of understanding where we know, okay, when I see this person, this is how I act, and this is what we do, and this is what the outcome is.
Whew, okay, safe, I understand what that is.
I can just jump into that box and exist that way.
But if anything new or different comes, and our house is so filled, and we have no room to move, it's almost like we start to panic because we're so full.
And it's like, I can't handle what I don't already know.
And everything starts to make us feel worried and anxious.
And we start doing and just living less, and we start controlling even more.
And at this point, too, like our house is likely not doing so well, right?
It is stuck to the brim, the roof might be starting to sag, and the floorboards are creaking, and the house is like gonna start asking us to look at what we're holding.
And it's gonna say, hey, I'm starting to break down here.
Like, you cannot hold this much.
And yet over time, this almost becomes a new normal.
It's like we think this house filled with all of these ways of being that everything we've learned and taken on is just who we are and how we are.
That's where I just feel so angry.
I feel frustrated and depressed, even fearful around, oh no, what's gonna be delivered to my door next?
What's coming next?
Because it feels like everything outside of us is against us, because everything outside of us is pushing us, it's hurting us, it's asking too much of us, and it feels like it's the outside world that is the problem.
And yet people and opportunities and just life itself can show up in so many other ways, and yet we're so trapped in our own house, like in our own pain, that we would never even be able to recognize anymore what would be a gift versus a hindrance because everything is too much.
And it's this feeling of, I just want it to all stop.
And it's like, we just can't see, our house is just filled with too many boxes of stuff.
And we're not meant to hold on to all of these things or attach ourselves to them, or define ourselves by this tangled up mess, you know, that exists.
And we just needed these boxes to help us cope for a while.
We weren't meant to live in a space filled with them, because we are not boxes.
We are not meant to live in boxes.
And yeah, we needed these boxes at one point, right?
We needed these ways of understanding the world that then helped us operate and just exist.
But that doesn't mean that they are meant for us.
I think when we get accustomed to living this way, of like, this is who I am, and this is how I am, and we continue to hold on to things, we get accustomed to that way of living, and it's really terrifying.
It can be to clear out the boxes and let go of ourselves, or what we thought we were, or why we thought we needed these boxes.
This is who I am as a daughter, this is who I am as a sister, this is what it means to be a contributing member of society.
And this is how I work, this is how I eat, this is how I operate here or there.
But it's really just a false sense of safety.
And that sense, it's just living that way in all these different boxes, it just kills our spirit, and it traps us in our experiences, and it at some point becomes unaligned.
So I spent the first 30 years of my life just collecting and filling my house with boxes and trying to fit into them perfectly.
Didn't matter how tight that box was, I thought, well, as long as I know what the box is, and I've defined who I am in that situation, and I show up as that person in this way, and I deliver, and I am consistent, and I just do it perfectly.
Like it was all about trying to become the right thing, the right person.
And I couldn't see that it was like the less I actually held on, the more space I could have in my house, like the more I could feel who I truly was.
And I have spent the past 10 years renovating my house, emptying out, clearing out all of these boxes, and trying to untangle all of the mess that is hidden inside of my being.
And I have done this in so many ways, tackling all different areas, mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually.
And I spent years alone, just focusing on my physical, because my body was so broken, that I required all of this energies pouring into just kind of keeping myself going, keeping myself alive.
And just through diet and supplementation, just focusing there and thinking, okay, okay, this will be the thing that fixes everything.
This will be the thing that helps me feel better.
And then it wouldn't.
There was still so much inside of me from all of these other areas and facets of life.
All of these experiences and memories and traumas and associations and programming and behavior.
And then I would try something else.
Okay, I'm going to go to therapy, and I'm going to work on reprogramming my brain, and I'm going to do a lot of journaling, and I'm going to work through my emotional issues.
Same thing, like this will just fix everything.
And it doesn't.
I spent an entire year just working through past lives and other lifetimes.
I spent a year focusing on the ancestral side and looking at my family patterns and the things that I've carried and working through that angle, and always wanting this fix.
Because the way that we are marketed to in all areas of life is like, oh, just do this one thing, take this one thing, do this one habit, change this thing in your diet, take this one supplement, do this one practice, try this one therapy, and that will be the thing.
But when we live in a body and a being that is filled with all of this stuff, and it's a big tangled mess, you know, we need a renovation.
And I was always wanting to outsmart that process, thinking that I could somehow skip these steps, or I would just do this one thing, and it would just solve all of my problems.
But really, it's just been over time, over all of these years, just, okay, looking at this one thing, pulling this thread, what does this memory lead to?
Okay, it's connected to this emotion, and maybe this symptom in my body, and okay, let's look at that.
And, you know, maybe I shift this one thing with food, and I feel a little better in one area, and that opens up more space.
It's all about creating space, and some of these things, when you pull on the thread, and you go down the rabbit hole, some of them lead to even bigger, deeper things, and other things, it's like when they're ready to leave, they just do, you know, they're ready to create more space.
It's kind of an insane process, actually, but it really is like renovating a house.
Like, I've felt that my body is actually leading the way here.
It's leading this whole process, so that's why I can't outsmart it, because there are structures in place, and parts of my foundation are there to protect the integrity of parts of the structure.
So we can't just gut everything all at once.
Like, there is a sequence, and that sequence is known by our cells and our bodies and our souls.
And that's the part of us that knows how to untangle.
It feels like this complex web or this puzzle that does happen in a certain form and a certain sequence.
And our brain, a lot of times, cannot handle that.
I'm like, okay, my body is falling apart.
Something is horribly wrong.
I need the thing to fix it.
But maybe that's just a part of the process.
And yes, me getting involved and trying to control it is actually effing up the process because I'm coming in and approaching it with, I need to detox, or I need to cut all these things out of my diet right now, and I need to go hard and change all of this.
But really, maybe I just needed to shift one small thing so that then I could have another realization that would lead me to a different type of healing for the next part.
Our bodies know the order that things want to be untangled, and we want to see results right now.
And we live in an environment which typically, or recently, has all been about these really quick fixes.
We want to hack everything.
We want to get there now and fast.
We don't want to waste time.
But I don't know, in my experience, and again, everyone is going to likely be different, but it really has been, can I actually just start creating enough space for me to let go of some of this control so that I can trust this innate process?
I can allow this renovation to take place and accept that it's probably going to take a lot longer than I want to.
Anyone who has renovated a house or an apartment or a space or lived through any sort of renovations, it's crazy making because typically, it takes far longer than you think.
Or you have a plan and you set it out, you go through it with the contractor or whoever, all the people working on it.
And yes, there's deadlines, and yes, there's points where the project is supposed to be complete, but that's not the way it typically goes, you know?
You think it's gonna be done in one month, and it takes seven months.
And once you gut the bathroom, you find out there's all these actual serious issues with the plumbing, or you take out the flooring, and you realize everything's not level, so you have to redo, I don't know, the concrete.
Or there's issues in the foundation that need to be solved as you go.
So it is like untangling, and as we untangle, things are connected to other things.
I have a practitioner I work with regularly, and she recently said to me, you know, I'm really proud of you, you know, you just, you keep going, and you're sticking in there, and that's really great, like you haven't given up.
And then I kind of thought about that, and I was like, I, yeah, but like what other option do I have?
What can I do?
I can't go backwards.
Like what would I even do if I decided to quote unquote, you know, give up?
And she thought about that too, and she's like, you're right, you know, I think you're on a train.
She's like, and your body is leading this process, and you can't really get off now.
I guess I could, I don't know, give up in one way of maybe just sitting and being like, I'm not gonna change, but I know it would just get more uncomfortable, and I am so uncomfortable, and have been uncomfortable for so long that, you know, I would rather allow this to happen and live in more discomfort, but knowing that this discomfort is leading me somewhere, it is at least unwinding and creating more space.
So I know this, I'm living this, I'm in this right now, but I still want guarantees all the time.
I say, well, if I'm gonna do this, well, then I want to feel like this or look like this, and if I make these changes or go through this process, then this is what it's gonna look like after.
This is how my life will be.
And none of that works, because those expectations are not realistic or they're not in line.
I don't know what's happening, and I cannot control it.
And I guess I'm about 10 years into this.
I'd say seven years really consciously into this, which just means I am extremely aware of my process of undoing.
I am here for it, I am showing up for it, I am tracking it and engaged with it and doing my best with it in all areas.
This is not some random thing happening to me.
This is a process, and in the darkest moments, I have to remind myself, you know, when my skin is literally cracking off and I am so anxious, and I feel like I can't move or I can't show up in any way that I would like to, I remind myself, okay, this is a process.
And yeah, my body, my mind, my energy, it is still screaming.
It screams loudly, often.
But I do know that there has been change.
There is more space, there is more room, and that's actually what's allowed me to be able to witness the process more, and be here more for it, and accept that it's uncomfortable is because there's more space inside of my house.
Like now, I'm more present.
I'm like, oh, I'm in there somewhere.
I am not just a product of all these behaviors, and patterns, and symptoms, and experiences that I've been told or I've lived through.
I am not just reacting to life anymore because I am so full, that I can't even feel myself.
Now, I'm actually there.
I'm present.
I can feel my essence, and I'm coming back to that.
I'm starting to realize things about myself, and it's crazy.
It is.
It's like, who actually am I?
You know, and I've noticed a difference in my nervous system.
Like, I am able to hold more stress.
I am able to hold more of a charge, I guess you could say.
Whereas before, that same thing, I don't know, it could be something really small.
Like, we're out of coconut kefir, and I need that in my smoothie because of this many reasons.
Like, I am so reliant on this.
I am stuck in this.
I need to have this.
If I don't, something terrible is going to happen.
I would attach these horrible outcomes and feel in my body, like the actual stress and anxiety, and my heart rate would go up, and my palms would sweat, and my mind would start racing.
If any of these small things were out of place, like I would be in a panic over something as simple as that.
And now I realize, oh, I'm actually not, I can handle that.
I'm like, oh, I guess I won't have it in my smoothie today.
You know, like progress is happening, and that's when I notice it.
And yes, I want to be completely new and shiny, and I want everything to be perfect, but I'm, yeah, I'm in a space where I'm like, okay, I am in the in-between.
I am in between the state of the old and the past, and everything that I've lived and accumulated, and I have cleared a lot of that and created more space, but I'm not in this recognition of self.
I don't have a whole new set of behaviors.
I have not become more of my, I don't know, it's really hard to say.
I guess I'm not sure exactly where this is going, so I can't say that.
I don't know.
I will likely always be in some form of state of undoing and becoming the truth self, whatever that is, but I haven't reached a point where I've instituted necessarily new behaviors.
There's more space, but I still don't recognize fully who I am yet.
So I am in this cocoon.
And yes, I have been here for a very long time.
And if you had asked me, what stage are you at in your metamorphosis, like two years ago, I'd be like, I am in the cocoon.
I am a disgusting mess of goo.
I feel gross.
I'm uncomfortable.
And I just want to turn into a freaking butterfly, like when is my moment?
When is my moment?
I want to fly.
And yeah, I've been in here for a really long time, and I don't really want to be in the goo phase anymore, but I kind of am, and it is shifting.
But I no longer need these same tight little boxes to exist.
And, you know, I'm allowing myself to breathe more and sit back and like think about, okay, normally I would have done this thing.
I would have felt like I had to, I don't know, talk to someone I don't know just because I feel uncomfortable or I need to fill this space or I need to show up as a person who is likable and who is outgoing, whatever that may be.
And now I don't feel the need to do those things the same way.
I am allowed, or I allow myself, to just stand there and maybe be quiet and wait for someone to talk to me, which is kind of ground breaking, because I didn't feel like I could do that before.
I was in this tight box of who I thought I had to be.
And now I maybe don't fully know what I want to do, but I don't have to do that.
So I can allow that silence in those moments.
But also, when we're used to living in those tight little spaces and those little boxes, like when I go to work, this is how I am, and this is how I deal with work, and this is how I receive validation, so I need to show up and do this, or I need to respond to my partner in this way because that means that I am loved, and all of it.
When we're used to living in that way, it can be really disorienting to start to expand when you recognize that you are too big for that box, and you always were too big for that box, but you reach a breaking point.
And I've found these moments, this discomfort where it's almost like Stockholm syndrome.
It's like I feel this connection and attachment to the box, even though I know I don't fit in there anymore, and I think I still need the box.
So it's like, oh, I'm used to feeling contained, and I feel this physically and energetically often, is this sensation of as I expand and create more space, inside my mind, inside my energy, inside my body, I have these moments where I'm like, I feel so exposed and open, and I almost want something to hold me in.
Like even physically, like getting strapped into the car, I want to almost like strap the seatbelt in so tight, because that gives me a sense of safety.
And yeah, the more space I created, it's almost like these phantom pains of being like, I still need the box.
Like, what do I do?
Even exercising, which again, I'm slowly coming back to that in very small increments.
I've noticed any sort of working out I am doing, I'm feeling my body like expanding, like my muscles, I can feel them working, and they're like getting a little bit bigger.
And I've noticed the discomfort with that.
I'm like, wait a second, what is this feeling?
Like I am expanding, I'm getting bigger.
Like, ah, this feels really uncomfortable.
I'm not in the same box I was used to being in.
Even when I have actual time and space in my day, I was so used to, especially with raising twins, it was like everything was ripped away instantaneously.
Like I had no more time or space to myself at all.
And I was so used to existing there and just trying to survive in that, that now, you know, six years later, I'm actually like, oh, I do have time and I do have space for myself.
And I, if I say I don't, that's not accurate.
That's just how I feel.
And so during the day, when I have these moments to myself that I was, you know, craving for years, I sometimes feel this panic.
I'm starting to do better with it.
I'm slowly, slowly adjusting.
But in the beginning, I was like, oh my God, like now I have this time window.
Like, what do I even do with it?
Ah, I'm used to being in this tight little box, and now I'm having this expansion, and I don't even know how to fill it up.
I want to almost revert back, because that's where I'm comfortable.
That's where my brain is, you know, familiar.
So, you know, I don't know.
My house collapsed so many times, like in on itself, where I was essentially like, we cannot resurrect this house.
Like, there is no way we can even renovate.
This house should just be scrapped, and like, we should build a new house.
And there's so many ways to take that analogy, but I just was forced, honestly, into a new way of being, because truly I could not in any way, shape or form, show up in the way I was before.
It was not possible for me at so many points.
And my brain and all the little pathways in there that were connected to all of the information in these boxes that were so tightly wound up, it was so strong that I could override.
I could keep overriding.
And that's like this new way of being.
It's like, no, no, no, you cannot do this anymore.
And yet I would somehow find a way around it to keep controlling no matter what the cost was to me.
And that's what I'm finding myself.
I'm like, wow, this programming is so strong.
It is so connected to all areas.
You know, I was at a point where I was literally just, do not touch me, do not look at me, do not breathe near me, do not talk to me.
It felt like everything around me was just an assault.
I was being assaulted with everything, and I could not handle it.
I was just in a state of overwhelm, but to the nth degree, opening up spiritually, body falling apart, mind like on fire, like how do I handle all of these things?
Having these two young babies and not having any time or space to even process that experience because there was no time or space.
We go through those moments where things happen to us, and then life keeps moving on, and depending what your situation is, maybe you haven't had time to process that experience.
And sometimes I know that people's whole lives are like that.
You know, one thing after another thing after another thing.
And we just keep storing and storing and filling up and filling up.
And now after what feels like years and years of just slowly renovating and clearing and cleaning out my insides and my house, I'm starting to be at a point where I'm opening the windows a little bit, like letting a little bit of the fresh air in, letting a little bit of life in.
And that fresh air is really stirring things up for me.
It's unexpected and surprising, which my old response to anything unexpected or surprising would be to kind of freak out a little.
Like I could not hold, even if something was positive or exciting, the excitement was too much for my system.
Something that I deemed negative would be too much for my system.
Everything was too much.
I couldn't hold anything.
And at these points, I'm seeing more and more, it's like, okay, this thing actually isn't scary.
These new things aren't scary.
They don't have to be scary.
Life doesn't have to be scary all the time.
And it was just having this body and this being that was so overstimulated, so filled with all that wasn't me, I couldn't even feel myself, that made it feel like that.
And yeah, this is coming up, like I said, in my creative process, with this podcast is me reverting, creating time for this new thing, and wanting to tell these stories, and it's all coming from the right place.
It's all for me.
I know that.
And yet, I'm still trying to control all of it.
I'm like, well, I need to do this story first to make sense.
And I can't just go on and talk about random stuff.
What if I repeat myself?
And what if I do this?
And I'm still preventing myself from just allowing what things want to happen.
I'm trying my best, but I really still want to produce things.
I want to do things on a timely matter.
I'm like, I should be doing this more.
I should be in more control.
I should have more output.
What if this?
What if that?
And it's, I can't do that.
It's not working, right?
It's not working.
I keep learning this time and time again.
And it's come up in relation to even the psychic work that I was doing.
And when I had to give all of that up, there was a bit of a relief there because, I think I've mentioned before, there are parts of it, I was like, this is for me, and yet there's part of it that doesn't feel quite right.
And it was that I was really seeing how other people were doing it, or how other people had made a living from giving readings or using their abilities in certain ways.
And I felt like I should be able to do this that way.
I should be able to do this.
Like I have these abilities, I'm good there, but why can't I show up in the same way that someone else shows up?
Why can't I do six readings back to back in one day?
Why can't I see people in person more than once a week?
Why can't I do more?
Why can't I be happy enough doing this?
Why can't I do short readings, like 15 minutes or half an hour?
Like, I still was showing up or trying to show up in a way that wasn't really who I was.
I put that into a box.
So something so honest and pure as intuitive sense, right?
And something that was innate to me since I was born and learned to be with and was coming from the greatest place.
I was like, I want to help.
Like, I feel love when I do this.
I want to do this in service of others.
And even coming from that place, I would still put all of these conditions on myself and try to fit myself into this box.
And this has come up recently where when I said like, I gave this up, and I was like, I don't know.
I thought this was free for me, maybe it's not for me.
And now it's come back around and it's a little bit daunting because I still feel like I'm in that box.
And yet, I'm slowly coming out of it.
I'm like, how do I reintegrate?
And how do I do this work in a way that's not existing in the box?
So it's really uncomfortable.
And it means almost stepping into a space of unknown, unknown for me.
And it's really allowing the process.
So what would that even look like?
I'm going to try and figure it out with my brain.
This is how I do readings, and this is how many people I would see, and this is what I would do.
And I'm like, no, that's again, my brain trying to control it.
What if I just sat with myself and kind of allowed stuff to come through?
And that's essentially even like how intuition works, right?
We allow it to come to us.
We don't force it.
And I was like doing a lot of pushing and pulling with my intuition instead of allowing.
So, and that can be really confusing, right?
When you know something is for you, but it doesn't feel right.
You're like, oh, sometimes, then we just write it all off.
It's like, this is too uncomfortable for me.
No, I don't want to do it.
I don't want to be near it.
And we tell ourselves it's because it wasn't right, or it was too much, or it's not the right time.
And sometimes that's true, but sometimes it's just defense mechanism.
It's like, I'm going to control this because if I remove it, I don't have to feel that discomfort of allowing for a new way to emerge, something that's new.
And that, again, can only really come when we have the space for it.
And now I have this space.
So these things are returning to me, being creative and expressing myself that I'm like, whoa, this is all new, but it's always been there, but I never had the space within myself.
And it was attached to so many other things that I just could never do it, you know?
And that's with all of this.
So this is an unboxing on all levels.
And I am realizing that.
And sometimes it's really uncomfortable.
And I'm like, no, no, no, this is wrong.
This is bad.
And it's like, no, no, I'm just in the process of unboxing.
I am renovating my home.
And this is kind of random, but I recently saw my brother.
He doesn't live in the same city I do, so we don't get to see each other that often.
But we got to hang out, and he's about eight years older than me.
But we grew up with the same parents in the same home, and experienced, you know, a lot of the same things, maybe through a different lens based on our ages.
But we were having this long talk, and he was bringing up something about having these dreams.
And he's like, oh, after we renovated the house, I remember having these dreams.
And he's like, I would be really panicked, and I was feeling really, really exposed.
And then I was like, huh?
I was like, that's really weird.
I used to have these panic dreams, too.
And I felt like everyone could see me, and I wasn't ready to be seen.
And so we realized we've been having, at the same time, around this time of renovation, when we renovated the house, these same dream, essentially.
And we even, and this is so funny, when you realize years and years later that you'd both reacted to a situation in a very similar way, but never talked about it.
I remember in that house, because now we had all these extra windows, like after the renovation, the home was way more open concept than it had been before.
Before, it was these tight little rooms, and then we'd opened up everything.
So everything was quite, yeah, open and there was more windows.
And even the front door, there was windows in the door.
So if people would come to the door, they could see into the house.
And I remember being at home alone multiple times.
And whenever there was someone who rang the doorbell, I kind of panic, and I would actually drop to the ground and crawl.
I would crawl through the kitchen and in the living room, and try to find a space where no one could see me.
So whoever's at the front door couldn't see me in the house, because I didn't want to answer the door, because I was afraid, I don't know, I was afraid of answering the door.
Maybe that's the feeling you get when you're afraid of answering your phone.
Maybe that's just me.
But there was something about being seen, and I didn't want to be seen, so I would crawl around the house until they left, like trying to get a view of, is it my friend, or is it someone asking for money, like who's at the front door?
And then he said he would do the same thing.
He would actually drop to the ground and hide because he didn't want to be seen either.
And so this is coming from, at the time, I was like 11 years old, and then up to even the time, I was like 19 when I lived there, and this was coming from like 20 to 26 year old, he was doing the same thing.
We both had the same experience of not wanting to be seen, and there was something about our home being renovated, like from the outside, this renovation taking place on this structure that we had grown up in, and it almost being too much, like we opened up this whole structure for everyone to see us, and yet we hadn't even as a family unit done any of the clearing on the inside.
I don't know if that's resonating or if that's coming out the way I want it to, but I was like, yeah, we didn't feel ready.
It's like we changed the structure and put all these windows in and opened everything up, and we were terrified.
We're like, oh my God, we've been living in all these little boxes where we were more hidden, and now we're completely exposed, and we're not ready for this yet.
It's like changing the outside, but not shifting the inside.
So we talked about this like two weeks ago, and I was just floored.
I was like, we were having the same dreams, and going through our life in those scenarios in the same way without knowing either of us were doing that.
So, I guess all of this to say is very roundabout, a lot of talking about houses.
Apparently, this is a metaphor I use a lot.
It comes to me a lot.
But really like when things are tough, and when they've been tough, and it's like bumping up against all the things that are new and scary and confronting, and it's just like, what do I do?
What do I do?
I'm just telling myself, I'm like, it's okay.
I'm unboxing.
I'm not used to the space that I've created yet, and that's okay.
I feel vulnerable.
It's confusing, and it's new.
But at least with that space, I have so much more potential to connect with who I actually am, and how I'm actually meant to be in the world, and I can be open to all these new experiences and things, and I can hold all of them better.
I can show up more.
I can be present for things, whether they're good or bad or crazy or insane, because at least I've got space to do so.
So, yeah, use that term, if it makes sense, unboxing.
Thank you for listening to this insane ramble, and hopefully I'll be back with more stories and things soon if I can just get over myself and allow the process to find me.
Okay, talking again soon, bye.
