Smack dab in my busiest time of year. If I were a CPA, today would be April 12th. The work phone is ringing. Orders need packing + shipping. Candles need pouring. Repairmen need calling. Dobies need walking. My upstairs is a hot mess. There are a hundred practical things I should be doing and writing isn't one of them. Nor is sitting in my pajamas at noon, checking FB, reading spiritual stuff or listening to Marianne Williamson. But this is precisely what my soul needs today.
Breathing room. Nourishment. Reassurance.
It is becoming less and less possible to override my spiritual needs.
For large and small business owners there's a frenzied, competitive greed at the holidays that I'm certainly not immune to. The unspoken yet tangible pressure to jump onto the spinning carousel of consumer spending and grab for all the golden rings your hands can hold. BUY MY STUFF! Wallets are open, dollars are begging to be spent and from a business point of view I should be capitalizing the living shit out of this season. I have done so in the past. I have earned a fair amount of money and I have suffered the consequences: year-end mental breakdowns, illnesses, not enjoying my own holidays.
This year I can't. I can't and I won't. This year I'm saying fuck that noise. For me, sometimes living life + owning a business is like being in a packed auditorium with nearly every person in attendance clamoring for attention. It's loud, it's overwhelming, it hurts my soul and I need (frequently) to escape.
I've struggled sending newsletters for two years. Do I need the money? Absolutely. This year has yielded my lowest earnings since I started zena moon in 2000. I don't blame the economy; it's all me -- I love my candles and my company but I'm simply tapped out and ready to move on. I truly cannot wait to hand over the reins to a new owner who will lavish her with the time, love and attention she deserves.
Meanwhile I get to practice accepting that I can't function at the higher levels I used to.
Accepting that I desperately need a break from marketing. Wanting to learn new ways to share my work in the world, which may include hiring someone else to do it for me.
Trusting that I can still earn a healthy living. Not knowing exactly how but knowing I've got skills and am worth it. Being open. Asking for + receiving help from smart, generous souls.
Believing Liz Lamoreux's reminder that "it really is okay to move at your own pace."
Reading this by Anne Lamott, which nails my experience lately:
I pray all the time, but without a deep sense of union or connection. It's like taking a survey by phone. I do it, but I mostly just want to be done. Still, you know what? I think it's okay. Some patches of time are going to be rich in communion with God, Goodness, Good Orderly Direction, even the Gift of Desperation. Other times? Not so much. As always, though, it is the right time to be exquisitely, crazily friendly to myself.
I'm going to keep doing my sort-of-faking-it prayers; my phoning it in prayers. We take the action, and the insight will follow. The insight will be how crazy and isolated I feel when my electrical cord is not plugged into the vast supply of gorgeous, hilarious, heartbreakingly profound and sweet divine supply. This lackluster phase will pass. Then, the joyously plugged in phase will, too.
Knowing (or at least suspecting pretty strongly) that my Higher Power doesn't want me to spend any more of my precious life striving/worrying/pressuring/judging/berating myself to the point of actually looking forward to death because at least then all of the striving/worrying/pressuring/judging/berating will be over and done with.
Saying that I trust my Higher Power even when I'm not sure I do.
Telling the truth, again and again and again. Laying it all on the table, every single day, with at least one other human being. Because God works in my life through other human beings and like Anne Lamott also wrote:
...which was about letting God into your worst drawers and closets, and how healing could not happen if you let God into a living room that had just been cleaned for the occasion. If you wanted healing, you had to show God the mess.
Being honest.
Being open.
Being willing.
Being grateful. Because I am, more than words could ever convey. Thank you for reading this. Thank you for your support and encouragement. Thank you for buying my candles. Thank you for being here.
I hear you, I am listening <3 Breathing it in and looking forward to getting there too.
Posted by: Deb Thornton | Sunday, December 23, 2012 at 12:11 AM
i know i'm almost two months 'late' to this particular 'party' but for whatever reason (wink wink, i don't believe in coincidence) i came across this particular post today...
and i'll be damned if i didn't just about fall out of my chair in the reading it because i'm *so* here with this right now...
specifically with the part about dropping the striving/worrying/pressure, etc...
in fact, those specific words were in my journaling to/with Self (the part of me that i believe is still in direct communion with God(dess)/Higher Power/The Divine, whatever you wanna call it) this morning. i was definitely meant to see this & be here
and to know that i'm not alone. and neither are you.
<3
Posted by: AngelNSullivan | Thursday, January 24, 2013 at 05:38 AM