I think a lot about the years I spent running from myself. Now, at 31 years of age, I can point to an exact moment where I disowned the one truly unique and powerful piece of myself. It happened when I was a child, scared and feeling deep feelings, and being shown just how unacceptable this expression was to the world, to those who were supposed to care for me in my pain. And just like that, I shut it off. I spent 20 years stifling the emotions my body desired to express. Always running from them, choking them down, scared that I’d drown if I ever let them flow. A never ending stream of sorrow, swallowing me whole, pulling me under.
My mid 20s brought so much upheaval. A progressed moon return, my nodal opposition, my early Saturn return. All in the space of a couple of years. It was a time that pushed me into therapy, something I felt forced into after completely spiraling and losing control of my own actions one night. Therapy then led me to taking a flame thrower to my life on all fronts, dumping a partner, leaving a toxic household, quitting a job that stretched me so thin, escaping the city I’d called home for many years. I took on a job across the country working on a boat that could only hold 150 souls. I don’t know if that time was good for me, but it was life changing.
I spent my days in a routine, working from before the sun was up until late into the evening, sometimes having an hour or two during the day to escape and be in solitude, or not.
I spent those four months on that boat sleeping in a room with three other girls, all sharing a room fit for a single child, and just one bathroom to be fought over just before our typical 6am call time. But even in such close quarters, always around another body, I still found myself offering up precious time to sit with my mind. I hadn’t before written the way I wrote that year. It really kicked off the start of a strong friendship to a journaling practice. I think back at this time now, seeing the way I'd never allowed myself to face all that I'd been through in the five years prior- a divorce, an assault, tumultuous relationships, toxic work environments, feelings of never being recognized for something outside of my appearance.
Toward the end of my time on the Snake and Columbia river, I made an appointment with an astrologer. I can’t say for certain, but I think it was my first. I came across Suzy at this cute shop in Astoria, a sleepy town on the coast of Oregon. I feel like I fell for that place just a little bit with its grey skies and the view of the water from the hillside. Something about it had always felt so welcoming to me.
The start of the Saturn return is quite the time to speak to an astrologer. I don’t know that I was very well versed in astrology at that time, and maybe didn’t even realize the significance of it all. I'm just now recognizing that I've had some time between me and my return to process it a little more deeply. One major take away I had from that meeting was this suggestion to let go, to allow myself to cry, to allow that pressure I’d always felt in my throat and behind my eyes to be truly released. There was so much we talked about during that session, but that was the only thing that still sits with me. This happy accident of a meeting. This tiny bit of advice. And for some reason, much unlike myself to do, I took it. I let myself cry. Every time I felt that pressure, I’d run off and allow it to flow.
The emotions felt wild at first, cloudy, unclear. A deep pool of stagnant water that had been left sitting for years. There was so much within its depths and no awareness of what it all meant, but I let myself feel it.
I finished my contract and took the remainder of the year off, did a little road trip up to New England until I ran out of money. I drove back to Florida on a handful of dollars, just enough to get me back to my parents home. I came out of 2018 feeling lighter. Dare I say happy? I’d never felt happiness like this. And I can acknowledge now, there was much fear that it wouldn’t last. It still feels so shocking to think I’d spent nearly 28 years never experiencing happiness, but how can you feel anything when you’ve spent your life fighting to hold on so tightly to something?
Eventually that consistent happiness did fade, but I found some sense of balance in it. Feeling into the emotions that came up felt less scary as I continued my practice of allowing it to flow. I found human design at that time, introduced to it by a childhood friend that I’d reconnected with online. It immediately captured my attention, though the information I could find was limited at the time.
With this information, I first connected to life as a non-sacral being. I’d already committed myself to the idea of cutting back hours spent working after starting therapy the year prior, realizing the connection to my nearly debilitating depressive episodes and constant anxiety attacks that weakened my immune system every time I’d have them.
Eventually I’d get connected to a larger community of people within the human design world. This led me down a path of exploration into my authority- emotional, channel of emoting, to be exact. It is a highly mutative channel, one that requires time spent alone, but also one that helps to empower others through its process. It is not always understood, but I'm beginning to build my own understanding of this individual wave and its potency and purpose in my life.
Having emotional authority is tough. I’m hesitant to say it’s the toughest of the authorities, but it’s been a challenging road getting to know my wave. Purging has been such an active component in my process. And over time, over these last few years of deconditioning, my wave has changed.
My experience of my wave has shifted, it’s gotten clearer, deeper, easier to navigate. Easier to navigate doesn’t mean less painful, in fact, maybe it’s more painful? But, I have awareness now. I know it will end, that the pain and deep despair, that the feeling of being completely alone in the world will end eventually.
I’ve grown to almost enjoy the process. That sounds funny, even to me. But, I don’t know, the depths of my emoting feels like a familiar companion. I know and trust them dearly, maybe more than any one walking and talking being in this world.
After almost five years, I no longer fear my depths. I love this friend I’ve made in my wave, and am excited to see how it will continue to evolve as I deepen my relationship with it. I don’t know if I will ever fully understand it, but I’m happy to try.