Most Sincerely,

Tear Matted Lashes Diptych

The last three days have been trying. Tuesday I woke up in the midst of some sort of spiritual stress that was made all the worse by growing household tension regarding Josh's lack of employment. When we made this leap of faith, moving to our new town, we did so knowing that this could possibly happen, that it might take some time for Josh to find a job here. While we were mentally prepared, the reality of the situation has begun to wear heavily on Josh, which in return weighs heavily upon me.

Tuesday was a very difficult day. I was overcome with questions and felt that I had no where to turn but inward, unto myself. While this is not the case, I felt that my worries, my fears would only exacerbate Josh's stress and therefore I kept to myself. I worked gently with myself. At one point as I was laying on our living room couch I thought about someplace I always feel safe and comfortable. The place I envisioned was our birth center. Every time we visit our birth center and meet with our midwife and our midwife apprentice all of my fears and worries are put to ease by their kind, graceful way of communicating with me. So I thought about what they would say to me and I said those things to myself. I listened to my fears about running out of money, and said "Yes, I understand how scary this is for you." I listened to the amount of stress school has been causing me, and said "Yes, that is so much to handle." I listened and spoke gently to my hurting parts. And then I wept.

After that conversation I felt the need to rest. I went up to our bedroom and found a comfortable position on the bed and just laid down and let my thoughts come and go. There were so many thoughts, all swirling around. I tried to let them be like a stream, flowing through me, getting to where they needed to go. Eventually I started concentrating on my breath, in/out, and I fell into sleep. When I woke up I felt the slightest glimmer of resolve. I remembered two things, that there was a haircut special on Tuesday where I could get my haircut for $11 and this post about Shamanic Journeying by Goddess Leonie. I reread the post by Goddess Leonie and felt moved to search for what resources our public library held regarding this practice. The book that Leonie mentions by Sandra Ingerman was available, so I made a plan. I would go get my haircut, which I have wanted to do for awhile but didn't have a great amount of money for, and I would go to the library and get this book.

That night I read the book through, and prepared for a Wednesday morning journey. Wednesday I journeyed. I feel that slowly I am coming to a new place of understanding on my path towards wholeness.

Today the storm hit again, both literally and figuratively. It was a gray and raining day. Spiritually I was feeling quite nearly the same things I had been feeling on Tuesday. Thoughts swirling rapidly through my head. "So many things," I wrote over and over in my journal. I felt so overwhelmed by all that I am trying to juggle in my life-- pregnancy, this new town and our limited finances, school, my creative life, me and Josh's relationship. It was all so overwhelming. So, I wrote in my journal a lot. I got it all down on paper, out of my head. I listed all of those "things." And then looking over them I slowly found some resolution for some of them. Others I just wrote next to "More Prayer, More Trust."

Something shifted around dinnertime. I started to feel a bit of relief. Then lo and behold, Andrea at Superhero Journal posted this essay which immensely confirmed one of the things I wrote in my journal today, "Establish a routine that works. Structure, flexibility, grace, fun, simple, proper time management." I feel it within my heart to work on this, not frenetically but gently, with care and mindfulness of what it right for my life.

And what about you dear souls? I am curious, if you wouldn't mind sharing, how do you deal with the overwhelmedness, that Andrea is so right in identifying that we all feel? How do you gently structure your days? I have always been such a unstructured flighty little bird, this is new to me. But honestly, I feel if I am going to accomplish the things that are within my heart to do, I am going to have to built some kind of structure into my lifestyle. I would love to learn how to do this with the utmost grace and compassion for myself.