Metaphysical Musings, Meditation, and Mythical Creatures

Last night I tried meditating before bed because even if I just focus on breath for a few minutes, it relaxes me and I usually sleep better. I think I came into contact with one of my spirit guides, and he’s African. Like from an actual tribe in Africa. I’m embarrassed to say I cannot recall his name. IF he’s here listening, I hope he’ll remind me J I got the impression he isn’t a permanent one, but just here for some particular lesson/lessons. He exuded a peaceful, confident, happy energy, has a beautiful smile and gorgeous ebony skin. Although he felt peaceful and relaxed to me, I got the impression of a warrior, a fighter, a survivor from him. I think his name is Zuna.

Perhaps he’s here to help me reclaim and use my personal power while being true to myself, to learn how to have that quiet confidence in myself and absolute trust that whatever it is I’m doing, experiencing, feeling, thinking – I got this.

It’s weird that a couple months ago I would have been tempted to dismiss this Zuna experience as imagination. But at some point over the past few months I’ve accepted that I’m sensitive to supernatural/paranormal type experiences, sensitive to other energies making their presence known somehow around me. And so now I accept that I “met” Zuna in meditation just like I’ve accepted all the other unexplainable phenomena I’ve personally experienced and witnessed over the last 9 months. That’s self-acceptance and a celebration of myself, my sensitivities, and it feels good to embrace it instead of hushing it for other folks’ comfort.

What was interesting to me yesterday, too, was that while I was driving home I was nearly overcome by this feeling of hunger. Hunger for everything – for food, for experiences, for travel, for meeting people, for real connection, for doing different kinds of work, for creating things, for seeing things…. Just taking huge bites out of life and swallowing as much of it as I could.

I reflected this morning that perhaps I’ve finally uncovered my personal will, my solar plexus chakra, my personal life force, my personal power… whatever the hell you want to call it. It’s been covered up for decades because of my childhood trauma and the need I felt to earn my place, my love, my acceptance in the world by doing what everybody else seemed to want me to do. By doing what felt safe.

During my drive to work this morning I had the thought of the time being passed now where I ask for permission to take up space, to express myself, to be. I’ve tried avoiding too much attention, tried not taking up too much space, tried not putting anyone out, tried “not being a bother”, apologizing for having needs and wishes and dreams…. That’s past.

I feel some sense of grief – because now, on the other side of so much healing and expansion and evolution, I see more clearly how much I was hurting and how repressed I was. I see how I opted to shrink into myself, ignore myself in favor of others’ opinions, lives, advice, presences. I see in severely stark relief how lonely that was for me, how dark it was, how small I made myself. How small I allowed others to make me.

I feel so much compassion for that self, for that me. I feel such love for her, such … grief for everything she was going through and didn’t even realize half of it. I feel such love for her and her pain. I’m so deeply sorry she was ever brought to such levels.

And today my body feels tired because I woke up a lot in the night last night, but I also still have that feeling of alertness, of clarity, of wakefulness that hit me yesterday when I realized I was/am just done with this job and it’s time to move on. I feel that the lethargy and exhaustion I feel is a combination of things. It’s my job, sure, which doesn’t feed my soul or passion or life purpose. It’s the restless night I spent last night, waking up a lot and being unable to go right back to sleep. It’s the other areas of my life experiencing shifts and transformations right now. My whole being is in a state of flux right now – my energy is all over the place and doing a huge amount of work.

All of this that I’ve written about today so far – this is all why I really am leaning toward getting the phoenix tattoo for my birthday in October.

I was born magnificent, reduced to ashes, and now I rise. It’s a repeating cycle I see when I look over my life – continual death and rebirth, endings and new beginnings. I could have let what happened to me as a kid break me, and I could have just stayed broken.

But something in me would not allow it. So like the phoenix, I rise from the ashes of my personal tragedy and from all of the hard lessons in my life. Constant change, constant evolution, coming back over and over again but different with each cycle.

So this weekend I will take it easy. I will rest. I will do what sounds like self-care to me.