CH-ch-ch-ch-Changes

I turned 40 this year.  40 didn't upset me nearly as much as 30.  This year felt like a rebirth to me - a shift in consciousness, a spiritual awakening, a time to release old patterns and beliefs that no longer serve my highest good.  A tall order, and one that's starting to feel like a bit of a challenge.  Maybe I should have followed my husband's example.  He took the easy route and acquired a half sleeve tattoo (his first) as a gift to himself when he turned 40.  I am joking when I suggest that repeatedly sticking a needle in and out of half of his arm was easy, but sometimes I wish I would have gone that route instead.  Actually, I would have preferred to have skipped the tattoo and my mid life crisis altogether and just bought a convertible, but that doesn't provide much long term satisfaction.

I have been blessed to have had quite a bit of vacation time this summer.  In fact, I haven't flown since the beginning of June.  Instead of feeling refreshed and relaxed after all of that time off, I sat here the other day feeling overwhelmed for no reason.  Anxious and moody, tired and achy, unable to motivate myself to do much of anything, I began my normal cycle of being too hard on myself.  Never feeling good enough, always feeling like I need to be striving to do more and be more, I wondered how I could possibly feel so out of sorts when I hadn't been "working."

Although I haven't been working at my "job", I began adding up the spiritual work I have been doing over the summer and started to realize why I was feeling overwhelmed.  I am working with a life coach, going to individual and couple's kundalini yoga,  working with an NAET practitioner on my physical health,  Proprioceptive Writing every morning (well I was, until I began feeling overwhelmed and decided I'd rather sleep), I began A Course In Miracles, I took classes to learn Karuna Reiki and attended another emotional release workshop in which I shifted a lot of energy.  I also started my own Reiki business, Pathfinder Healing Arts, and have been setting up workshops in two different locations around Pittsburgh.  Reviewing the list, I am able to see that I have been doing a lot of work, I'm just not getting paid for it.  That's not really correct either, I'm not receiving a paycheck, but the rewards from this work outweigh any monetary compensation I could receive.  At least they will once I get through this period.

I intend to further expand on many of my endeavors in future blogs.  Since I haven't posted for a while, this is just a brief overview of what I have been experiencing recently and a way to get me back into blogging again.  I am really feeling the urge to write, but I am cautious not to make any promises (yet) about frequency.  I've made those promises before and then I was frustrated when I failed to keep them.  I hope to write again soon, as there have been too many shifts and interesting things happening to me not to share.  But the main message I am getting lately is that I need to take care of myself first, before I can help/encourage/motivate anyone else.  We'll just take it day by day and see what happens.

A good friend of mine gave me some advice the other day.  He told me to look back down the mountain every once in a while and see how far I've come.  Always focusing on the top and how far I have to go, I rarely take the time to consider how far I've already climbed.  No wonder I'm tired, the air is getting pretty thin up here.  I think it's time to take a seat, catch my breath, and enjoy the view.