One Foot in Front of the Other

One of my favorite Christmas shows is Santa Claus is Coming to Town because it is the quaint stop-motion animation that I really love. Another reason is because of this scene:

When I was little, I loved the idea of the mean old Winter Warlock getting to change himself into something warm and nice by simply “walking out the door.” I would beg to watch this show as a little girl and it was this song, One Foot in Front of the Other, that my heart was longing to see each time I sat down to watch the show. The rest of it is great too, but it is this song that has stuck with me all these years.

When I sat down to write this morning, this song was playing in my head and I was curious about that. I didn’t get to see this show this year, so it wasn’t like it has been stuck in my mind since watching it a few weeks ago. It just suddenly started playing. Feeling curious, I researched the lyrics and this verse popped out at me:

If you want to change your direction,
If your time of life is at hand,
Well, don’t be the rule, be the exception
A good way to start is to stand.

As I have spent my time here in The Nothing, I have learned a lot about myself and I have experienced myself with the sheer intensity of heightened awareness and sensitivity. In the beginning, I was perched precariously on the edge of the crevasse, curled in the fetal position, and teetering tenuously. I didn’t want to open my eyes or move my body. I was certain that, to move, meant certain death. Even though I had this vast, open space in front of me to step into, it seemed that the only choice I had was to topple over the cliff into oblivion.

I held very, very still for a long time with my eyes squeezed shut, the winds howling around me and threatening to push me over. Curled in a ball, I waited. For something. Anything.

But, in The Nothing, there is nothing, but me. So… I finally began to understand that no one and no thing was going to show up to give me directions. And I could, if I wanted to, just stay there, curled up like a popcorn shrimp forever. That, ultimately, would have dissolved into severe depression, I know that now, but that wasn’t the reason I chose to rise from the desert floor and pull my ass away from the abyss.

No. I chose to rise because, frankly, I got bored with my Victim Self. Enough already.

So I slowly unfolded from the ground and shook off the dirt. I looked around, the blackness gaping up at me from behind, its dizzying depths causing vertigo and, instinctively, I stepped away. There was no conscious choice to move; it was simply survival instinct. Then I waited, breathed, felt those emotions, breathed, waited. And stepped again. I have chosen to step and step and step again. Although I didn’t know which direction to go – other than away from that gaping, bottomless, dark and scary abyss – I just merely stepped. Then stepped again. And, while I did all that stepping, I have had huge waves of emotion roll through me, over me, around me, and over me again.

One of the things that has been so incredible about taking this trek public here on my blog is, I haven’t processed publicly on my blog for quite some time. In the beginning of blogging, it was what I did a lot of – processing in public. Heck! That is how my book, Above the Clouds, came to be – at the suggestion of a therapist, I began writing to get out of me all that was inside so I could heal. Even though I am doing this processing publicly, I tend to forget that someone will eventually read these words. It may be someone I love or a complete stranger, but someone will read my words. Because I am doing this publicly, people are interacting with me. They’re sharing their experiences of The Nothing; sharing their awarenesses and their curiosities; they are giving me feedback!

Once upon a time, I was not friends with feedback. So not friends! I perceived everything – good, bad, neutral – that people said to me as being a slam, as being a way to prove I wasn’t enough in some way. I practiced and practiced for a very long, conscious time to understand feedback and that everything I experience is feedback and I get a choice about how I interact with it.

Loved ones, clients, friends, followers have shared private and public words with me about what I’m experiencing in The Nothing. I have been reminded often of the love that is all around me and I’m seeing the reflection of the ripples I have created returning to me. It has been stunning, actually.

Then, yesterday, one of my sweet friends did a reading for me with her own deck of Intrinsic Universe Transformational Cards. It was the first time I had witnessed another reader reading with the cards I created. That, in and of itself, was breathtaking. The message was deliriously perfect and something through which we both laughed because of the straightforward, direct, and dead-on nature of the entire thing.

Using a 6-card spread called “As Above, So Below” that I created (and had completely forgotten about!), she pulled through the following reading:

• My conflict: Collapse… an impending physical collapse and I am fully in this, open to it and experiencing it (as if none of us weren’t already aware of this fact)
• Where I am defeating myself: Enraptured… a state of being metaphysically in bliss and I am blocking that and it’s feeding the collapse
  
• Where I am supporting myself: Joy… the spiritual state of being joy, but I’m blocking it, which is also feeding the collapse
• Universal support: See… being able to see what is not physically present, that others may be missing and I am also blocking that and the blocking of it is increasing the intensity of the collapse
• Earthly support: Touch… the invoking of healthy non-sexual touch is available to me and I’m actually not blocking this one, but it is the one thing that I am not receiving. Go figure.
• How resolution can show up: Lead…  “Lead indicates that people are waiting for you to lead the way through uncharted frontiers.” I am also open to this one, but nearly every form of support on the way to that card is blocked.

Yesterday, as I had gotten out of my car to go into Dancing Cranes, I glanced down and found a quarter in the parking lot. Interestingly enough, it was minted in my birthday year and was a little beat up. I immediately picked it up with a big grin. Several reasons why that was a happy moment… it’s a message from Kel & Garrett; it’s the Universe delivering me abundance; and it’s a little beat up (like me) but still valuable (good reminder, Angie).

This morning, I received a message from the same dear friend that knocked me over with the reading she gave me yesterday. It read:

I have also been thinking about the quarter you found in the parking lot. Do you realize that the Universe is “giving you quarter?” To give no quarter means to show no mercy. To give quarter means to show mercy.

Mercy’s on its way.

……………………………………………………………….

I always welcome your thoughts, questions, and comments.
Feel free to jot down what you’re thinking in the comment box below.

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