Authentic.

I've been thinking about getting a tattoo for quite a bit of time, years actually. This one:

Love has taken me in, lifted my load.

In this empty space, a wonder grows.

A dream of some kind of peace I can hold up as true.

I never knew anything about love before you.

And something for Talon and Jason. A symbol. Maybe some blue light down my arm with the lyrics written inside. They are lyrics from (my favorite artist besides Pink) a Sarah McLachlan song, Love Come. The entire album has the undertones of her emotional journey through her divorce but if you listen to the whole song it could be taken in many ways. The beauty in her music, and she's said it herself, is that she writes for herself but in a way that everyone can interpret it for themselves. This stanza is so important. No joke it's the song I listened to over and over amidst my first Reiki journey when my grip on life was slipping and spinning out of control. It's the last song I listened to before my last Reiki appointment before finding out I was pregnant with Talon. On the other side of that first Reiki journey, I learned more about love and relationships than I ever imagined. Saved me. Saved my marriage. Saved everything I had and then on top of that made everything even better.

This entry should maybe be in Talon's blog too. This one's more about me so I guess that's why I decided to put it here.

The Reiki journey continues with a new chapter of challenges. I was thinking today in my session how I've prefaced talking about Reiki with people like it's weird and I'm apologizing for something weird. Bottom line, it's working with the consciousness and mind-body connection. Everyone can get that. It doesn't mean everyone is willing to tap into their true selves but everyone has had some experience or another. The irony is humans are social beings. We need connection yet we all walk around guarded, unwilling to be authentic. The saddest part: some of us don't even know our authentic selves. We can justify, reason, and lie to ourselves about ourselves everyday then we end up doing the same thing to those around us. Then one day you wake up and look at that person and think, "WHO are you?!" Or, "What am I doing?!" Things happen to us from birth that shape how we perceive the world. How we interpret the world can create our "issues". Shit happens. And sometimes we think shit happened. It's all about the energy. It ebbs, it flows, up, out, and around. Some people have energy that flows up and out. Others have energy that flow more out and out and out....the ego. They drive, they pound, they assert, they defend, they destroy, they blame, they manipulate, they will try to prove. Prove what? Who knows. They suck energy because all they do is take and they have no idea how their actions impact others.

I've been that ego-driven asshole. Ask the 21-year-old me.

What I've learned is my issues reside in the past. Whose don't?! It's my responsibility, specifically if I truly want to succeed at this body transformation thing, to attend to the energy surrounding those moments in my timeline. The work begins by revisiting those moments, the people involved, and moving the stagnant energy that is holding me back. I've tried training for a fitness show before and I failed because I never attended to the wounded self. No one ever hurt me but I thought they did. Now...I have to revisit, search, forgive, replace and give a voice to the silenced. When you want to do something for a long time but you just can't seem to commit, look at your reasons and truly why you are feeling such repulsion. It can get ugly but isn't it better than living in a constant battle?

I'd been feeling embarrassed for announcing I'm doing a show in November like it'd prove something then retracting my statement. I felt hesitation all along. The same fight, the same hesitation I've always felt when attempting a show. I knew something had to change. I could have kept my mouth shut, done the mental work, then announced the training. But it can't be that easy, right? No, of course not. I needed to put it out there to realize the enormity of the situation. The resistance wasn't going away. It was time to pay attention to it. The focus now is fix the situation. I know I want to transform in one way or another. Maybe I will still really want to get up on stage. Or maybe I just want to work my ass off to get back to the shape I was in when I was rowing. 

Whatever happens, I'm going to find that dream of peace I can hold up as true.