Stepping into the Unknown – Making Dreams a Reality

“It’s not that we fear the unknown. You cannot fear something that you do not know. Nobody is afraid of the unknown. What you really fear is the loss of the known.” Anthony de Mello

Today marks one year since I moved into my place in the Sierra foothills. What a difference a year makes. I’ve traveled the four seasons here and landed back at Winter and snow again. For the most part, as long as my power stays on (I’m on a well, so it is a big deal), I am enchanted by the snow; its beauty and sublime quiet.

But, before I landed here, I had to make the decision to leave dear friends and a place I knew well that was fairly temperate, beautiful and convenient. Looking back, I find it amazing that I suffered with enough anxiety to upset my gallbladder and my sleep for two weeks before and after making the decision. What you will read below, in italics, is what I wrote a year ago November, but never published. On this first anniversary of living in my new home, it makes sense to take a look back and check in on how it feels to have made the leap. I’ll comment more on this at the end.

November 2012

I’m facing a challenge and I don’t need to give you the details, because you will likely recognize the dynamics no matter the particles. The questions are similar when we face decisions about career change, whether or not to have a child, moving, buying, selling, marriage, divorce.

When there is a challenge, I know I am at my edge, my personal frontier of movement. I enjoy traveling the frontiers of my thinking, but in physical reality, where everything is a commitment of form and solidity, I am slow to move.

Indecision is a pathway to decision and it is a detour. It depends on how you work with it.

In our multi-dimensional personality, many voices participate. Some truth is spoken by each as well as lies. I am bedeviled by the Trickster. I want to know before knowing is possible. I want “beyond the edge” to be fairly predictable and it is not.

While the heart loves and works its magic, the mind begins to question in response to the threatened body. I would be at the mercy of my mind’s paralyzing spin if I was unable to discern the energies behind the words I think. What is their source? To what are they responding?

When my heart feels sadness for leaving something, someone, or some way of being, behind, my mind wants to solve the emotional dilemma by telling me I didn’t like that thing, that person, that behavior anyway. It uses its “make wrong” technology to lighten a heavy heart. But, all it does is darken my spirit and fog my vision.

Let me simply grieve. Let me feel deeply the impact of my attachments.

Most of us really don’t change or make changes in our lives until it becomes too painful not to. I certainly hold a lot of compassion around that. We put our dreams on hold indefinitely, thinking there is always tomorrow. I hold a lot of compassion around that too.

The frontier, out beyond our edges, is vast and full of infinite possibility. It is where our dreams await us. We have, in our imaginations and desires, seeded that frontier with all we need to call us forward. What is left is for us to have the courage to leave our outgrown self-images, our old identities and old beliefs behind. We need the courage to face and be with the emotional impact of the chaos that is created by stepping over the edge; that line in the sand drawn by fear. The consciousness of the You that lives in that future already has different beliefs and identities. It has already discovered new ways. You know that, because you’ve seen it in your visions and felt it in your bones even if your personality/ego of today is blind and resistant.

First we dream and dreaming is not enough. It’s time to have the courage and take some form of action.

And so, using my free will, I enter what my current ego self perceives as “the chaos,” wave at the gatekeepers as I step beyond my edge of comfort and current knowledge.

And that is where I left off when I filed the notes away on my computer saving them for a possible blog post that, until now, never again saw the light of the computer screen.

The dilemma was, of course, whether or not to move. More than that, it was whether or not to give myself that long-cherished dream of being what one acquaintance called, a “mountain angel,” living among tall trees on a good chunk of property.

So, how did I fare after I waved to the gatekeepers and made the leap? I was blissfully happy my first several months here. I remember telling everyone that I have never been happier in my life. I don’t know what it was, but I was lifted beyond my expectations. Maybe it was the snow, the elevation, the newness, the proximity of Tahoe and the Sierra Buttes. Maybe it was my local friends and one in particular who keeps me active with snow shoeing and hiking.

Mostly, I suspect that exhilaration is what we feel when we step out into the unknown, because that frontier is the territory of heart and soul and it has been calling for a long time. When we respond to that call, we are received with “welcome home.”

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What calls to you? If you have a tough decision to make, if you have been putting off your cherished dream(s), you will benefit from coaching with me and certainly a one-year walkabout would get you over that edge and well on your way. Everyone needs support. Let’s talk about how I can be that for you. Email me at kathyloh@coachkathy.com and we can set up a time for that conversation.  Don’t wait another moment. Moments add up to years.

Copyright © December 2013, Kathy J Loh, all rights reserved, including images

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Remembering Innocence

“It’s a quarter after one, I’m all alone and I need you now.”  – Lady Antebellum (Need You Now)

I had to take my van in for scheduled maintenance and I knew I’d be house-bound for the day, except for wherever I might choose to go on foot. Well, let’s not argue bikes and buses, that’s not the point. I chose to make today one free of the obligation to go anywhere.  I thought I was clearing today to work on some projects and it’s still possible I will do that later.

What I didn’t expect was that my entire system, body, mind, spirit and heart, would seize the opportunity to do a little (or a lot of) integrating and healing. It’s like my system saw the open space coming and the entire assembly line began to whir.

It began with reviewing my post-divorce journey yesterday. (The project I’m working on has to do with that journey.) Those thoughts led to noticing what I really feel about where I live, what I do and what I’ve left behind, including what more there is to leave at the curb.

I had a vivid dream about my ex. I’ll spare you the details (and dream analysis) and will simply say that, in the dream, I held him with huge compassion and love. I wrote about it in my journal and pulled an angel card: Healing. The cards on either side of it being: Forgiveness and Self-acceptance.

Iris: symbolizes new birth at hand

In my morning meditation, it occurred to me to offer the same love, compassion and forgiveness to myself that I had offered my ex in my dream.  I did so out loud. Whoever lives in me and carries some sense of unworthiness heard it and sobbed with relief. I felt the guilt and pain dissolve while my cells danced with the light and love of healing forgiveness.

We hold things against ourselves unconsciously. It’s so important to become curious about and intimate with our self-talk. How many times have you heard someone say, “I’m harder on myself than anyone else?” Hello? Is this supposed to earn us some kind of award? No wonder the body hurts, the spirit sinks, the heart cowers and the mind becomes distorted. No wonder. We become so separated from ourselves.

Jump ahead an hour or so and I am home, without a vehicle of the gas-guzzling variety. There’s a sense of solitude about it, kind of like when the power goes out or being snowed in. The spaciousness is visceral. The house feels doubly insulated and there’s a kind of sobriety about the stillness when the mind is not able to run a checklist of all the places I can go to get away from here.

The phone rang, once and then nothing. No caller ID to know who it was. I discovered the garage door was open… (must’ve hit the clicker in my purse when I was reaching for my keys.) How odd, I thought. But then, I get that my own personal garage door of past memories, slights, and embarrassments has been opened wide. I’m shedding light on those old boxes stored away deep inside. Not some glaring construction light that has to do with fixing. Rather a soft dappled sunlight that says “it’s over now. You are safe. You can come out of hiding.”

Then I found myself checking email and catching the odd video link here and there on Twitter and Facebook that catches my fancy. It’s a kind of warmup ritual (that serves double duty of procrastination ritual) for me and it gives me something to post to each stream.  I came across music session videos on Huffington Post and I clicked on Lady Antebellum’s Need You Now.

I was that person at one time and I have had a hard time reconciling with that self and her behavior; the neediness, the addiction to someone, the pain of the attachment, the lack of control that had me make a phone call that only leads to more shame and  pain.  I love the song, bought the CD, but never let myself fully feel it. Today, I was able to watch the video, listen to the words, feel the emotion, recognize it as if looking in a mirror, and not turn away. I can accept that I’ve been there and done that. Really, who hasn’t?

And so, with the help of a dream, a bit of space and time, loving guides, meditation, gentle whispers and winks from the Universe, and Lady Antebellum, I have discovered that my body, mind, spirit and heart have opted to spend the day aligning, integrating and moving toward the next greater wholeness of my being. Who am I to argue with their wisdom?

I took my car to the shop for maintenance. My soul created sacred space for its “vehicle’s” healing and I am re-membering innocence.

What will you re-member today? What disowned part of you gets to come home and rest in the vast loving space of your heart?

copyright (c) May 2010, Kathy J Loh, All Rights Reserved (includes images, but not youtube video)

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