“The cost of your new life is your old life.”

I don’t know who gets the credit for saying those words. It was a phrase that has long been rolling around in the back of my head, something I politely nodded at, and whispered to myself, “maybe that is true for them but not me.”  I had heard variations along the way, “I lost everything on the way to realization.” Again, I went through my own inventory of what I had already shifted out of, left behind or lost and I would tell myself, “Your quota has been filled, life has been shifting, clearing, cleaning out for decades. Maximum, you have a few minor adjustments from here and we are good to go.” God, I was so freaking wrong.

If I could go back in time, I would draw my past self in close to me into a big bear hug (she’s going to need it). I would hand her a helmet, a Costco size bag of coffee, and a cat plushie. She would look at me quizzically, and I would say, “you will need those for the debris flying around when your life implodes, the coffee is for the sleepless nights (I would leave out just how many), and the cat is for crying into when things get hard and you feel utterly alone”. She might look at me and say, “I am a grown ass adult, I don’t need a plushie for this journey. I’ve done my work, I know how to deal with change, difficulties, emotions, feelings better than most people I know. This is NOT my first rodeo.” I would strap the helmet onto her head, tap it a few times for good luck, and stuff the cat plushie into the crook of her arm, and place the coffee at her feet. “Believe me, you will need these.”

I say to that past me, in my gentlest and most loving voice to soften the blow, “oh honey, you are about to get the shit kicked out of you. It is going to be a level of brutal you have not anticipated or gone through, but you are also being fully equipped to handle every twist, turn, bump, and bruise.” A brief look of concern flashes across her face, as she adjusts and unconsciously pulls the cat in closer to her chest.

I continue, “You will not be the same person you were and that’s a good thing. You will change in ways that make some people leave, and a couple draw in closer, and some new ones will start coming in. Let the sort happen. When you get through this, you are going to be the version of you, you came to be. It won’t happen all at once; it will be a slow unfurling of a bud that has been closed for decades, but I can promise you, when you finally start opening, you will breathe deeper than you ever have, you will feel more joy, more freedom, and you will witness yourself through your own mirror instead of the world’s distortions, expectations or directives. For the first time in your life, you will paint your own canvas instead of trying to fit onto others’ canvases.”

I pause for this next piece because I know how heavy it will land. “Most everyone is going to leave you, and I mean everyone. That will trigger your greatest fear, and you will have to face it, alone.” I pause and look at her, tears slowly welling in her eyes. “You’ll reach out and silence will be the response; remember that even the silence serves a purpose. Two will stay and will draw in closer, and they will be your lifeline, but most of this path you walk alone because this part of the work must be done in the silence of yourself. There will be times your body will tremble so hard from the panic of these releases and shifts that you think you will be shaken apart but you will be ok. When you get through it, you’ll be surprised at how strong your legs are, and how solid the foundation of you is, you’ll see that even alone, you are whole. This centers you in ways you’ll find surprising, and you will see that where you once reached, you now invite.

There will be times you feel abandoned, off course, betrayed by your own soul, but you are being held all the way. It won’t always make sense to keep moving forward but do it anyway. You might feel like you can’t see the path, but it is ok, just tune into yourself for the next step. If there is no next step, then rest. The next step will appear when it is time.”

I look her in the eyes, at the fear and uncertainty rising and I pause for a moment to let her take in all that I have said. “There will be times that the weight gets so heavy that you will consider stepping back into your old life. This will happen, give or take, about a hundred times or maybe a thousand. You’ll be challenged to remember that your past is not where your future lives. It was a lovely past, but it is not where your growth can occur. There will be times you beg your soul to rip you off the planet because dying would be easier than living through the pain of this shift. She, your soul, will ignore those pleas and let you know something better is coming, to which you will flip her off, curse her and beg for timelines and details. She will also ignore that because she is a bit of an asshole, but an asshole with perspective that you’ll learn to trust.”

My past self is quiet and taking in everything I have said. Then whispers to me with fear ladened eyes, “Why are we doing this?” I face her. I look at her intently with compassion and reach in and brush a rogue curl behind her ear. “We are doing it because staying would have been slow death and you know it. You have been feeling it for a long time. You were making yourself small and digestible to keep others comfortable. You fit into slivers of spaces in other’s lives, but these spaces never invited you in to express your true expansiveness, to show your radiance, to be unbound and explore those spaces most people fear to tread. You have dutifully carried the weight of other’s programming, expectations, roles, conditions, but the world doesn’t need you fitting in, it needs you to be you.”

I let the words hang in the air. My past self now hugging the gray plushie cat with both arms, fear visibly worn on her face, her whole-body trembling. She whispers, “What if I take all these steps forward, become the person I was meant to be, and no one comes? What if this version of me is too much, too bright, too open, too honest, too loving, too existential, and too goddamn multi-dimensional? What if we walk the rest of our days alone? At least before, we had pieces of what we wanted in a life that was safe and comfortable. What if we do all this opening, find our edges, find our beauty and the world isn’t ready for it?

 I study her face, the age lines beginning to form, the gray edges peeking out from her temple. I feel into her weariness, her fears, the ache behind the questions and I take a deep breath. “I’ll be honest with you. The full path has yet to reveal itself, but every day, I follow one more breadcrumb. A feeling, a nudge, a knowing and even when it isn’t clear, I take a step forward. I follow the invisible thread that just seems to keep pulling me forward. When I feel pulled into multiple directions, or fear or indecision is over taking me, I look for the feeling that feels the lightest or most joyful and I take that step. This part of the path and unfolding is not something my mind gets to control. It is a passenger, and it screams at me with fears, doubt, logic, patterns and programming that wants to pull me back into the known, the safe, the secure. My mind doesn’t get to logic its way out of this journey, and my fears don’t get a say in the direction, not this time.

 I don’t know the answers to your questions past self; we are not at that part of the journey where we have rounded all the corners, and life has fully bloomed. Your fears are my fears, they whisper at me in the quiet and I have learned to let them sit with me. I don’t push them away, I look at them and say, “you belong here too,” and I hand them a cup of coffee, and we sip in silence. I have to trust that my soul didn’t pull me out of a good life to step into exile. I have to trust that my soul’s GPS is moving me towards truth, love, community and joy. Each day, I seem to be given something that helps with that day’s movement forward even as my outside world remains seemingly static and unchanged. I have had to step into micro-trusting as I navigate through fog, and what feels like endless liminal space. There are just enough drops of rain starting to fall in the desert to say, “see, it’s working, just keep walking, you’ll get there eventually.”

My past self looks down at the ground, sniffles, and sighs. “This sounds like it freaking sucks dude, WTF! You are still a mess!” I laugh out loud, finally, she gets it. “Yes, my friend, this is one of the hardest things you will walk through, and yes, it is raw and messy.” She looks at me annoyed, “oh, so you mean to say all those other hard times in life were just the warmup act and not the punchline?” I chuckle, “you got it sister, but something in my gut tells me this is the last major re-alignment we will go through. It won’t be the last difficult thing we face, but it is the last major shift that lets us step into life that is in alignment and resonance with who we are. Right now, all I have to hang onto are the visions of what is slowly unfolding:  a love and partnership so full of love that it makes both our souls sing, work that is aligned to my gifts, and my soul community where friendships are real, authentic and connected through being seen, witnessed and heard. Past self, this is why I keep walking forward, this is why we had to go through this horribly difficult and uncomfortable time. Will it all land? God, I hope so, but I had to give it a space to grow. I had to show up completely and say, “I’m ready to give it my best and see what shakes out.”

My past self sits down, grabs her cup of coffee, and snuggles her plushie cat. “Well, thanks for the heads up, and thanks for the cat. I’ll call him BC.” I sit down next to her, sip my own cup of coffee and say, “you’ll get through this, I promise you. It will suck for a while, but you won’t hurt forever, and I can feel good things are coming. We just have to be patient, keep tilling the soil, and trust that things will bloom.”

She looks at me one last time, nods at me in acceptance, then she fades back into the recesses of my mind. I take a deep breath, look out my window at nothing and I return to my present day. My morning routine the same as every day before. I sit on my couch, I drink my coffee, I write and I snuggle BC. I do feel something new starting to seep in. These days my breaths are deeper, the inspirations dance closer to reality while the pain of this time slowly fades into the background. A newness is starting to emerge that is pushing new growth through thawing soil. I welcome the small amounts of joy that occasionally peek around corners and hide like dust bunnies under the grief of the life I had to leave and the fears that say, “nothing is coming.” I welcome joy home like a long-lost friend, and smile knowing that my story is still being written, piece by piece but this time, it’s truly being written by me. I don’t know how long it will take but I am still here. I am still showing up. I am still trusting that it will all work out, and my soul whispers to me, “that’s all I need you to do right now.”