I have spent so much of my life settling for scraps. Being the jello that fits in-between what everyone else needs and wants. Telling myself, someday, it will be my turn. Today I am going to share what happened when I stepped away from my life for 4 weeks, and took a journey through Europe, to find Anna and my edges.
I have spent so much of my life settling for scraps. Being the jello that fits in-between what everyone else needs and wants. Telling myself, someday, it will be my turn. Today I am going to share what happened when I stepped away from my life for 4 weeks, and took a journey through Europe, to find Anna and my edges.
Grab your other device to play today’s movement song.
“Rise Up” by Imagine Dragons
Find it, and all our movement songs on my Spotify playlist, at awakenyourinterior.com/resources
Today when you move your body, find pleasure in the rise. Whether it is a slow push up, a melting heart pose sliding back onto your shins, a hero pose with a lift and lower, or rising onto your feet and taking the slowest unravel into a stand. Find pleasure in the journey and go even slower than you think you can. As always, I will let you know what I am doing, incase you need a little guidance. But follow your own body if it is telling you something different.
Your Soulwork for today:
I have a challenge for you. Today, we begin our epic love story, together. How will you show love to yourself today? Join me on Instagram and Facebook @awakenyourinterior as I share one tiny action each day, to show yourself love. I will even be leading live movement on Instagram just so you can see how this looks instead of just hearing it. When you find Self Love actions you love, stack them, adding them into your daily ritual. You are the only one who can do this, and the universe is waiting.
I have spent so much of my life settling for scraps. Being the jello that fits in-between what everyone else needs and wants. Telling myself, someday, it will be my turn. Today I am going to share what happened when I stepped away from my life for 4 weeks, and took a journey through Europe, to find Anna and my edges.
I know how hard it can be to live in a home that doesn’t feel right. It's not your fault. You were never taught how to create a home that makes you feel alive. The key is inside you, we just need to unlock it, and this podcast is where you begin. I’m Tasha Cleaveland, welcome to the Listening Closely podcast.
It had been 7 months since she disappeared from my life. 7 months in darkness. Trying to fill up with sugar and busywork and never filling the black hole inside me. The abyss that comes when you lose your footing. When you lose the person holding the light. But I found her, and here we are sitting in a cafe in Budapest, filling ourselves up with the things that bring us joy. Stillness, nourishment, slowing down, and helping others find their own path.
At the end of this podcast, I will be giving your “Soulwork” assignment. If you haven’t been making it to the end of my podcasts, please go back and get your assignments! I know it can be hard to do anything in one sitting, I get it. But that part is specifically for YOU, to help you take a step toward your awakening. That’s the part where you show up for yourself.
It feels rather surreal. 4 weeks ago we were in a Zoom, and Anna told me her plan to backpack through Europe, going wherever she wanted, when she wanted, staying as long as desired, and moving on. It spoke to something deep in my soul. With tears streaming down my face, I said “I am SO happy for you. I have always wanted to do that.” She replied, “come with me”. All the “but… I can’t!”s fell away and I said “YES.” I didn’t know how I would make it happen, I just knew I had to go. I felt pulled from my soul and the universe aligned to make it happen. For the first time since I was 18, I was on a journey JUST for me. Only for me. Two weeks later I was on a plane to Paris. Feeling my way through choices and desires. Not worrying about anyone’s laundry or mess. Not arguing with anyone about anything. Anna and I are so similar, it makes it easy to be together. Our struggles and strengths, have paralleled in our lives. And in that stillness, that void of doing, giving, going the distance, we saw how much we sacrifice for others, losing ourselves in the process. We decided we would find our edges on this trip. To stop being so “easy to love” by not needing anything, so easy to accept what was left over for us, to follow our desire and find our voice.
The thing about a journey is that its never a predictable line. There are hills and valleys. Moments of shattering and moments of bliss. But that is what makes it so rich, the reward comes from the work. In Paris we found beauty, confidence, awe and mystery. In Florence, we found love in the most unlikely places. The kind of love that washes over you and brings you to tears, and you have no idea why or how. It was tempered with sadness and revealed wounds that had never healed. Madrid gave us dead ends, surrender, rawness, and vulnerability. Barcelona, forced us to stop in our tracks, get deep into our bodies and focus on what we really wanted. Santorini gave us unexpected surprises, body bliss, then… shattering. In Athens we began to slow down, to find our groove, and fine tune our desires. Budapest brought us the stillness and nourishment we craved, and more hard lessons. Practice in “not doing”, letting go of what “was", and holding space… trusting the universe to bring into that space, what was truly meant for us. This is a never ending process. Just like with dance, as soon as you peel back one layer, there is more below. More emotions, more movement, more disowned pieces.
Stillness brings up things you thought you had settled long ago. As a mom, we rush through all of it. Some of it is because there is just too much to be done. Once at a Tony event he said “You ask, God, give me more time! And God replies, give me more YOU!” I took it to heart, but in the wrong way. Staying busy, doing all the tiny little things, leaves nothing left OF you, and “the list", will never, ever be done. What I was supposed to hear in that statement, was I needed to show up as the powerful me, that only I could be. To use my time with precision. To stop being all things to all people. Because THAT, was me being the jello in the middle of everyone else’s hard edges.
In Florence, Anna and I stumbled upon magic walking down a small random street. From the open doorway, I paused, pivoted, and felt called to enter. We didn’t know what it was, we just knew we had to go inside. It was here, that we both were flooded with emotion. Tears streaming down our faces. Hands and throat tingling. Silently we moved through this space, landing on the pockets of energy that cradled our souls in love. Each thinking we were crazy, that something was happening just to us, we looked at each other, and saw the tear soaked masks, and the hands on our throats and hearts. Two bodies, washed in an energetic experience, silently, unknowing why or how. I was pulled to an old table, circling it slowly both stopping at the place with the strongest energy. My hands felt called to touch the table, tracing it’s deep grooves, thick grain, clamps and well worn center. We watched as people swirled around us rapidly, buying trinkets and perfumes, oblivious to what we were experiencing. Confused at how they didn’t feel it too. As we left, we discovered where we were and what it was- the oldest apothecary in the world. Hundreds of years of healing happened in this space, herbs chopped on this table infused with love and light. It was one of the most powerful experiences of our entire trip. And we only found it, because our bodies led us there.
This became our mission, find the energetic magic. But that was easier said than done. We kept looking in the likely places, but this magic was the kind you have to be open to receive. And when your emotions are going on a roller coaster and your mind is spinning in circles, it is much harder to feel anything in, or outside your body. My body was triggered in Florence and wounds of rejection rose to the surface when a new friend offered to spend the day with us, and despite their multiple messages and calls confirming it, never showed up. The universe was shouting at me, to stop waiting, stop the cycle, stop taking it personally. My brain knows that when someone doesn’t show you respect, it’s about them, not you. But my heart, wounded by years of it, was weary. I fought allowing this to stack onto the mountain of rejection in my soul. I fought seeing the situation with those glasses. But old patterns die hard and it takes painful soul searching to find the lessons and actually apply them.
We thought we had it together by the time we reached Madrid. But news of Anna’s Visa issues brought things crashing down again. One little email, two little words. So much power. We had begun making plans, of going back home together, of the wonderful adventures we would continue to have. We sat there in that hotel room, with the buzz of the city street below, crying for hours. Suddenly everything felt lifeless around us. Dreams shattered and hard conversations forced a surrender to the universe. To the grand plan. To the signs and lessons we had been ignoring. Surrender feels so hard when you have been holding on to something for so long. When you have failed and picked yourself back up, only to fail again. The determination that often gets you to where you want to be, sometimes gets you stuck where you don’t.
Santorini brought a new opportunity to start over. We meditated on the plane, breathing in everything we desired, and breathing out what no longer served us, hoping to land in a new headspace and energy. Sitting on the black sand beach at sunset, meditating to the sound of the waves, feeling the warm breeze on our skin, brought us the new page we had been seeking. In the dark I moved my body and danced to the sound of the ocean with renewed faith, deeply intoxicated with pleasure. Circling breath through my body and soul. But like a mirage, Santorini wasn’t that fresh start we hoped for. Instead, reminding us we hadn’t learned the lessons on rejection and surrender as another layer of each was added to the stacks.
So we ran to Budapest. To the safe haven Anna had found. To find our peace. The city enveloped us and slowed everything down. We walked along the river, watching the sunset. We did yoga, danced and meditated in the grass, watching the boats roll by, feeling the breeze tickling our skin, grounding us in this safe space. But the cracks in my growth rose to the surface in this stillness. And an unpleasant encounter with a stranger, gave me a painful lesson. If I don’t speak up for myself and clarify my intentions, the person who is hurt by my silence is me. Self sacrifice is not a noble act. It is an act of betrayal, to the one person who needs you to put them first- YOU. I once heard that the universe tries to get your attention by dropping a feather on you. When you don’t listen, it tries a leaf. And then, when you fail to hear again, it hits you with a branch. It’s so easy to ignore the feathers. Brush away the messages and guidance. And the leaf… well it’s a bit harder to ignore, but when you aren’t in your body and not learning from the lessons the universe is trying to teach you… you keep going, just like everything else in your life. The branch is the one you can’t ignore. And the universe smacked me in the face with it.
I believe the energy in the apothecary was trying to tell us to speak our truth, from our hearts. Neither of us were. Neither of us had found our voice. So the universe gave me multiple chances on this trip to find it. Anna found it. She began to speak her truth. And I continued to play small. To wait. To be patient for others to hear me and care. I have spent my life waiting for it. My mother died waiting for it. I was repeating the same pattern that was passed down to me. And I think the universe was forking fed up.
In desperation for clarity, Anna had our tarot cards read. Hers? Pixie dust and rainbows if she simply stopped doing. Great! With excitement I listened to mine. And it said the universe was angry with me for letting my fire die inside. For putting myself last on the list. For the self guilt, shame and perfection that I demanded of myself but not of anyone else. That the universe was waiting for me to rise up and give myself what I gave to everyone else and if I did, everything I have been waiting for would arrive. But no one could do it except me. No one could love me, but me. And if I don’t I will keep repeating these same circles forever, and it will be too late for the abundance that is waiting. Because I am killing myself slowly with these lies I tell myself. That I don’t know enough. That I am not thin enough. That I am not skilled enough. That I am not pretty enough. What lies do you tell yourself when you look in the mirror?
At the end of this podcast, I will be giving your “Soulwork” assignment. Be sure to listen to the end, so you have something YOU can DO to start living an awakened life, today.
If that reading hadn’t been so spot on, then I might have disregarded it, just like I disregard myself. But it was everything I knew and refused to admit. Kind of like giving birth. There is no award at the end for the most suffering in the process. Refusing to see your own worth does not win you a humility prize. Sometimes people say things that pierce the armor. That eject the tapes that play in your head when you see yourself. Anna is excellent at that. At seeing your beauty and value and saying it so you believe it. I am grateful for all the people who pierced my armor. And now, it’s time to take it off. To remind myself that I am light. I am one-ness. I am the expression of divine love. I am here for a purpose and I am wasting time on this earth, not believing in, or loving, myself.
So I am writing a new chapter to my story. A love story, to myself. Would you like to join me?
My journal reflection:
Noticed beauty: yesterday we walked to a park on top of the highest peak of the mountain overlooking Budapest. We weren’t sure we were going the right way, but we didn’t care, we were enjoying the journey. At each fork in the road, we took turns and asked our bodies which way we felt called to go. Twisting and turning vine covered staircases, zig zagged under a tree canopy with a waterfall at the base, and a circle of columns at the peak. It was intoxicatingly beautiful and an excellent reminder that if we stop and listen, our bodies will show us the way.
It’s time to move! Grab your other device to play today’s movement song.
“Rise Up” by Imagine Dragons
Find it, and all our movement songs on my Spotify playlist, at awakenyourinterior.com/resources
Today when you move your body, find pleasure in the rise. Whether it is a slow push up, a melting heart pose sliding back onto your shins, a hero pose with a lift and lower, or rising onto your feet and taking the slowest unravel into a stand. Find pleasure in the journey and go even slower than you think you can. As always, I will let you know what I am doing, incase you need a little guidance. But follow your own body if it is telling you something different. Don’t forget, the soul work assignment is at the end of this podcast. Don’t miss it!
Your Soulwork for today:
I have a challenge for you. Today, we begin our epic love story, together. How will you show love to yourself today? Join me on Instagram and Facebook @awakenyourinterior as I share one tiny action each day, to show yourself love. I will even be leading live movement on Instagram just so you can see how this looks instead of just hearing it. When you find Self Love actions you love, stack them, adding them into your daily ritual. You are the only one who can do this, and the universe is waiting.
Come on. We’ve got this.
Thank you so much for spending time with me today. I know how hard it is when it seems like there isn’t any to spare. But you showed up today. You put yourself on the list and I celebrate you. As you move through your day, keep your soul work assignment in mind and before starting bedtime routine, while the kids are brushing their teeth, grab your journal and fill in the prompts. Keep going. You can do this.
Know another mom who needs to put themselves on the list too? Please share the love, because we are stronger together.
Until tomorrow. Lots of love.
Tasha