Has your life ever stopped you in your tracks? Mine has – both literally and figuratively.
Actually, when I step back and pull focus, life seems to have been filled with moments when I was stopped in my tracks, and was even taken off course and direction.
I have been exploring ways of finding meaning in those moments and periods when life -in all of its interconnectedness, also created fragmentation for me and my reality, and unexpectedly took me off course. This fragmentation can also be referred to as trauma and soul loss. These life occurrences are also framed as initiatory experiences. They can happen in subtle ways and extreme ones. This can happen over time and in acute moments. As someone that has come to know herself as a highly sensitive person and empath, there are additional layers to navigating life uncertainties because of the way our nervous systems are impacted by energy and abrupt change.
In my lifetime, I have had to manage and navigate a great deal of uncertainty and also experience more heightened sensitivity because of this. Early on I realized that creative play/work such as art-making and creative writing would be practices – resources as ritual, I could continue to rely on to provide re-integration, except in some times of extreme uncertainty.
Ink pen on paper with enhanced color: Integration Process Drawing (pink) by Elizabeth Izzo
I have had periods in my life when my ability to function as a visual artist was thwarted by injury, illness or both. Those were specifically challenging periods for me. Dark times. Times when I also realized that I was without the type of community (established or not), or a functional family of origin that could have served as a softer cushion for me to fall into while I needed time and care to heal and regenerate – that safe space that is necessary to integrate those fragmentations, to be loved and held with unconditional acceptance through sustained duration. We are all worthy and deserving of this LOVE whether or not that is our experience.
Collage created from travel brochures collected in Edinburgh, UK. by Elizabeth Izzo 2017
I was fortunate to have periods in my journey where acceptance, rest and perspective were provided for me through visiting my family abroad. The experiences gained over two trips to Scotland, where my daughter and son-in-law were living, offered me hope for finding my way out of dark times. I was held by their community of friends and family in a new way that was much needed for me in order to begin to restore order to the life that waited for me back home. I also greatly benefitted by being exposed to cultural norms that were different than mine. Back home, I had been living in a reality where there was an incredible amount of hyper-normalization of events that were occurring around me and to me. I gained the strength I needed to return home with a new kind of tenacity that was necessary to confront these abnormalities.
What happens for me with my instinct and will to survive and recover is that I discover and create new tools. I have had to rely on tools, and I still do – ones that I can access from established and emergent teachings, and ones I have had to call forth and allow to arise in me. I understand this process to be one that is aligned with my soul purpose and that is partnered with Source. This process affords me the invitation for creating a new story for myself.
For instance, it was not always the case that I had safe healthcare that was delivered with ethical and optimal outcomes for me and my body. I have learned to draw in safer supports for the care of my body, mind and emotions. One tool that I apply to accomplish this needed shift is the use of an affirmation practice.
I’m provided with trusted
and effective guidance,
care and support.
All of this life living and processing calls for courage, curiosity and creativity! We have to make room for the moments when we both feel discouraged and are also moving into empowerment. Affirmations are a destination and a path towards bringing in new story themes. When I need to hold space for fear that is arising in me, I try to remember to include that in my practice: I am feeling off center in this moment AND I know I will return to balance. This is a way for me to have a full embodied experience that does not deny or diminish any parts of me needing my attention.
When we are navigating a course through personal and collective times of uncertainty, we can call forth the qualities we need to assist us in passing through these periods. We can allow a new story to unfold that has creative opportunity to shift paradigms. We can allow our old stories – ones that have stopped us in our tracks and taken us into deep process to find place as compost, enriching the soil for life’s next season.
Bursting seed pod of artichoke plant. Photographed by Elizabeth Izzo 2017
Like My Own
Somewhere
between individualism and collectivism
a tree grows
A deeply rooted and mighty one
she waits for me whispering
take comfort in my calm
my balance
my nature
There is no conversion
only revelation woven into this web of wildness
In the time of all there is
meet me
You will be guided
letting resistance fade away into the gloaming
where it will be transformed
and a new day will dawn again
Divinity’s promise
Until then
let us lay with the wildflowers
the meadow grasses
and the birdsongs
I want to love you like my own.
by Elizabeth Izzo ©2017
Ink pen on paper with enhanced color: Integration Process Drawing (green) by Elizabeth Izzo 2017
Updated December 3, 2017: Affirmations are a powerful tool for transformation and change and are made manifest in mysterious ways. Unfoldment for change takes many forms, and is in relationship with your own energy and soul’s intention. The process for change is as unique as each individual is.
This post was written partly in response to an inquiry for reflection in conjunction with enrollment in Findhorn Foundation’s Living The New Story workshop.
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