December huh? How did thee roll around so fast? No just since November or even since February, but since last December which I recall was only moments ago.
And yet, this year has been so full of many great things, and hard things, and big things. Family holidays and high school graduations, pets coming and going, netball and basketball, birthdays and jobs and driving lessons and boyfriends. School Balls and boat rides, high school transition and then, later, transitioning school. Speaking gigs, wildflowers, board meetings and relationship events. Book writing and baking and PT. Decluttering entire rooms, gardening, getting up early and sleeping in. And so much more.
And still December rolls on in, with the howling southerly wind, and in between all the things I sense the dull edge of panic that threatens to engulf all of December. It’s half-asked questions… “Did you get that finished…what else needs doing…are you ready for 2022?” – half-asked because they remain unanswered – each question just the preface for another question. Are you ready for Christmas? Can we go to the shops? Who will have the pets when we go on holidays? Why are there fleas in the house again? What’s for dinner? What will 2022 look like?
I decided, somewhere in all of it, not to let December take me out again. To find a way to have fun with it and infuse it with joy. The stress never gets everything done, and the complaining drains all my energy. The things the kids are excited about are valid and they get to be excited about gifts, and all the sugar, and sleeping in and doing proper #fa most of the time. And I also noticed that I have evolved.
See once, at the start of blending a family, and always around Christmas I get overwhelmed but some kind of unrealistic expectations about how life should be. Our first few blended Christmases’ were hideous. It was impossible to distribute gifts ‘fairly’ and they were all more interested in what the others were getting, and there were many tantrums and disappointments. But over time, they’ve all grown up a bit (or a lot) and also, the inner work that heals the wounds in me about all the Christmases we didn’t have, and all the (unrealistic) expectations about other people and myself that don’t support us to be real, true humans are gone. My evolution is big but subtle – it’s not like developing an opposable thumb or the ability to fly, but more like extra smile lines around the eyes, or the ability to touch your toes. The evolution makes a big difference in the everyday, but at first glance you may not notice it. Home feels like a place where we all belong, and this what I’ve always wanted but noticed for such a long time how it wasn’t really like that. And then one day it was. That’s evolution.
So, the only question I have for you is, how have you evolved in 2021? What big and yet subtle ways have you and/or life shifted? Your own emotional and spiritual evolution is the very thing that will bring you home. A spark that starts a personal revolution.
I’ve been writing a book, working title “Wildflower” this year. It’s in hiatus currently while I evolve more into an author, who has a complete book to publish. It won’t be long. But here’s a little excerpt in case you’re curious. It’s something I wrote about evolution. The evolution of faith.
Faith evolved for me. An evolution that sparked a revolution. When I didn’t have faith, I could find no evidence that life was working for me. When I had faith, the evidence showed up (but I had to have faith without evidence, because that’s what’s faith is). God kept showing up for me anyway, even whilst I rejected all forms and ideations. Magical things unfolded, life kept happening for me (not to me) and yet, my faith was only momentary. Like believing in manifestation when you’re manifesting everything and dissing it when life gets hard. I wanted to believe in something, but also wanted to be sure that the thing I believed in was OK with everyone else too.
Faith is entirely individual.
It’s experiential.
It has an energy that I cannot articulate, except to say it’s like light, spacious, all-encompassing, cleansing, pure and alive. I should be able to describe it with more beauty, but I can only feel it.
It’s more what happens/unfolds in the energy of faith than faith itself that makes it so precious, but one cannot exist without the other (the unfolding or the feeling).
“Let me ask you something. If someone prays for patience, you think God gives them patience? Or does he give them the opportunity to be patient? If he prayed for courage, does God give him courage, or does he give him opportunities to be courageous? If someone prayed for the family to be closer, do you think God zaps them with warm fuzzy feelings, or does he give them opportunities to love each other?” – God, Evan Almighty
The opportunities were laid down for me, over and over. And although I didn’t (or didn’t choose to) see them, as everything unfolded it became clear. And my faith bloomed.
Faith isn’t about God by the way. You may not vibe with this term, and that’s OK. God, in and of itself, became a concept that I could name for myself to connect me to faith, but for you it could be anything. The universe, buddha, energy, nature, divine, goddess, spirit, ancestors. It’s just we’re always believing in something (even if you say you believe in nothing, it’s still a belief) so the something you believe in gets to be of your choosing. Originally, I felt I didn’t have a choice. And it was that lack of choice that led to me rejecting the whole God thing. But then I had less access to the support and resource of something much bigger than my human self that lived within, around and beyond me. And accessing that resource – my own divinity, and the divinity of everything – opened up a world far beyond what I believed was possible. And although it scared me (the idea, the energy, the intensity of the feeling) I knew it felt right. The rightest. Right in the centre of my being.
Before faith I felt very out of control. As though all the things that were happening around me were not the things I could influence at all. The people I chose to love didn’t love me back or didn’t love me back for as long as I loved them. As though all the things happening inside of me were not the things that I could influence at all. That anxiety would forever haunt me, drive me and drive me crazy. That I would often feel sad and lost and unloved.
Before faith I missed a lot of magic. Or if I experienced it, I dismissed it or rationalised it away. Coincidences and serendipity surrounded me, and yet without faith they were kind of weird and unsettling. Magic was the whole half of me I would not allow myself to experience in case it didn’t ‘gel with’ all the people I wanted to love me (which is everyone BTW, so no small feat). The more magical I became (spiritual, connected, woo-woo) initially the more uncomfortable I made people, and in the way in which magic works the less uncomfortable I felt about myself. The more magical I became the more me I became. And faith sat in the fulcrum.
Faith required me to get in touch with my body.
Faith required me to converse with my soul.
Faith led me to spirit.
Spirit led me home.
Wishing you a magical festive season, and a delightful rest of December
Big loves xx
Fleur
PS I’m evolving my membership space The MotherFlockers #moflos
Keep an eye out if you are curious or if it calls to you x
Photo by Suzanne D. Williams on Unsplash
