The feeling is my cue.
It wasn’t always.
For years, I simply became the feeling. Now, more often than not, I notice it.
I sit with the energy.
I notice where it lives.
While I do that, I look to the moment of activation.
You might have heard of it described as a trigger.
There are so many possibilities.
A tone of voice.
A quick and careless rebuttal.
A look that reminds you of something.
Someone’s bearing.
The list goes on.
I’d say that one thing remains consistent.
It is relational.
Do I feel safe in relation to this person, this thing, this possibility?
Is this a time for me to withdraw or explore?
Which adaptation of myself do I become?
And why?
Sometimes in this noticing, a sense of withdrawal becomes my safety valve.
I may be present, but I’ve also taken a step away.
Removed myself, somewhat.
Sometimes in this noticing, I allow myself to explore.
How do we fit together?
How do we connect?
Sometimes I allow myself to remain open.
I allow myself this new opportunity.
If I allow myself to notice the feeling, really notice it.
If I look at what triggered it.
And take my time.
I might notice an inside voice narrating to me.
I might notice space.
The voice is there with a map.
It has been here before.
It directs me.
While the space is open and unknown.
If I stay with the voice, I get to repeat long-held patterns.
I remain in a world that is familiar to me.
There is a lot to be said about that.
But not right now.
However, if there is space.
If my internal world is quiet.
There is no marked path for me to follow.
And sometimes I close it down and label it.
Terrifying.
And with that label, the space that I noticed shrinks.
The voice takes over again, the pattern emerges, and I fall backwards into known territory.
That is one way I have responded.
But there is another way.
One that keeps me in the feeling for a little while longer.
Allowing the unknown steps to begin.
What might this step bring?
I don’t know.
I can’t control it.
I have no certainty about this next step.
It is both exhilarating and terrifying.
There is a compulsion in this next step to go fast.
Get it over and done with.
Make it quick.
But I’m noticing that compulsion more and more.
Becoming acquainted with it.
Allowing it to exist while slowing it down.
I feel it now as I write.
Isn’t that interesting?
No, that’s the wrong word.
It’s fascinating.
I’ve chosen to step forward.
My old pattern was to step back.
I’m sharing this, and I know it is new.
Even though I’ve written before.
But now I’m sharing something alive in me.
If I had to give it a label...
Which, actually, I don’t.
I’m allowing myself to be.
Showing up on this page without my armour.
It feels strangely euphoric once I allow it.
Not in some mystical way.
More like when I was a child
and jumped into a swimming pool
without knowing how to swim.
And the doggy paddle became instinctive.
It took me back to the edge so I could climb out
and do it all over again.