Autumn and seeking refuge
The winds have changed, the air is cool. The leaves continue to flutter around us as we move through our daily lives.
I have set myself this challenge of writing a weekly limited series newsletter for two reasons. Firstly, I exclaim daily how much I love writing, yet I find myself frozen by the choices of what platform to write on, who to write to and what to say. I want to say what is deep in my heart, but even after years of self development work, or undoing, I still find it hard to show you everything i’ve got. As Taylor Swift demonstrates and as Kesha stated “You can write a song, you can not tell the truth, but your song will suck”.
The more vulnerable we are, the more authentic we are, and that is the very reason we hide our authenticity! The fear of judgment, the fear of rejection. Ironically, it is us who are doing the judging, us who are rejecting ourselves.
So I want to use this limited series to challenge myself to be vulnerable, to share how I really feel, as when I discuss current challenges with others, I realise we are all going through the same thing, which more often than not correlates with whatever sign or gate the planets are in.
We are not the movers, we are being moved.
Secondly, I want to write more and continue honing my skills. By setting this challenge, it focuses my energy through purpose. By limiting the series means I know there is an end, in case I don’t enjoy it. All challenge must have endings.
Last week the Sun was in Gate 6, the Gate of Conflict (Chinese iChing), and boy was it difficult for me. I faced the same demon I recognise so well, and hovered around my flat wondering what the point of living was, how there was no way out, and no positive change in sight. Nothing I would do on this earth was going to change anything.
Then the Sun moved to Gate 46 Pushing Upward, the Gate of the Determination of the Self and I felt relief. This gate is about love of the body. As we live in a binary, it can also manifest as disregard of the body. Ironically, as I have had food and body related issues my entire life, I found this week so far quite pleasant and appreciative towards my body and all that she does for me. It also correlated with a street festival near the new Pilates and Stretch studio I work at, and we had packed out free classes on the grass in the sunshine on the weekend. Many people loved trying Pilates, stretch therapy and massage in our company. What a great Sun energy for it.
Without knowledge of Human Design, Astrology, Ehama, Buddhism, ACIM, the work of Eckhart Tolle, etc, I would not have recognised that the difficult days were just that, difficult. It was important for me to not attach myself to the thoughts and emotions, instead allowing them to be, allowing them to pass without identification. Even though I know this inside out, I still felt swept up by the pain of the emotions, and if I had not had this framework to reference, I can understand why people take action to depart this world.
It is in moments like these where recognition of what is really happening is critical. The only way out is to disengage from the “story i’m telling myself” (Brené Brown) and sit with and breathe deeply as the emotions roar through the body like a stormy sea. We are not our emotions. Our emotions are not us. They are information. They allow us to deepen our understanding and awareness of this world.
Stormy sea | by author
When we feel like this, we need to take refuge. I always say it’s like being on the beach when there’s a storm. We don’t stand there walking into the sea, naked, freezing and choosing to risk our lives. Instead, we go home. We put on the fire, or make a hot water bottle. We wrap up. We make tea or hot chocolate. We cry. We write. We sing. We colour. We watch the entire Harry Potter series.
When your world is falling apart, if you can remember one word: refuge. That word pulls me out of the spiralling mess and gets me to take necessary action to care for myself. It is helpful to plan what refuge means to you before we enter a crisis.
Emotions are energy and energy must be transferred, must be processed. Hence the importance of creative outlet, for all of us, whatever that may look like.
Writing is my creative outlet, and although I often find myself chirping about the same things, at least it helps me process what is going on. In turn, if that helps another person in anyway, then I feel I have done something worthwhile. It truly makes my day when someone contacts me to say how something I wrote helped them through a challenging situation.
I am not living my life in silo. Even though we are all unique, and Human Design points us to find our unique selves, we are all the same in terms of the challenges we face. It allows us to relate, and without that social element, we die to the wildness inside of ourselves. We are biologically designed to relate and without that contact with others, we shut down. When I am going through a challenging experience, I feel isolated. The moment I share my story with another and hear they are going through something similar, suddenly I feel lighter, suddenly I feel as if I am not bearing the weight of this pain alone. We are in it together. We can share the pain.
So as I complete this first week, I recognise through the writing that when I do not have a focus or purpose, that I drift, and when I drift, the mind goes on the attack. While I await for life to give me the next focus, I use this self-assigned challenge to keep me surfing and hopefully create something that benefits you, dear reader.
So here we go, one newsletter a week until December 21st. Due to the short time frame for each one, expect the editing to be a little messy and some weeks varying in length than others. The purpose of this challenge is to be authentic and share what is really going in during that week. In terms of housekeeping, this is a new newsletter which goes out to everyone signed up to my Substack, and you can unsubscribe from this one (Undo: Autumn Series) if you want.
That’s all for this week. I welcome feedback via email, comments below or handwritten letter if you feel so inclined :).
May the rest of this week be a gentle one for you.
Íse
This post is from the limited series Undo: Autumn Series, part of The Undo Project, alongside the podcast Undo: Uncovering Authenticity. It is archived on isemurphy.com. If you want to support my work, consider a paid subscription on Substack or you can buy me a coffee. To stay up to date with Ise, subscribe to her newsletter.