 You know what excites me the most about this time of the year?
Spring Training. I mean it. Major League Baseball Spring Training. The day that pitchers and catchers report to spring training, is like an *unofficial* holiday to me, in my house. Ever since I was a little girl, I have been a HUGE baseball fan. Saint Louis Cardinals specifically. I can remember staying up late in 1982, listening to the last pitch of the World Series on KMOX radio, and hearing the final call by Jack Buck when the Cardinals clinched the world series. Full disclosure: although an ardent baseball fan, I really miss Whitey Herzog’s “small ball” approaches to baseball. I loved the strategy of the 1980s managing style where players played very fundamental baseball, advancing runners, stealing bases, working diligently as a team to win the game. I’m not quite as big of a fan of the homerun and 100+ mph pitching, however I do appreciate the athletic skill that it takes to be able to compete at this level. Time changes things and such is the case with baseball. Anyway, the spring training series that takes place in Florida is referred to as the Grapefruit League, and the games/spring training season that takes place in Arizona is referred to as the Cactus League. Typically, being a Cardinal fan, I head down to spring training for a couple of weeks this time of the year. It’s a nice respite from the cold of the Midwest and also a chance to get to see the players up close and personal, talk to them, get some autographs and really just thaw out from the winter. I’m not heading anywhere this year due to COVID19, but you can bet I’ll be keeping track of the progress right here from Saint Louis, MO. When this time of the year rolls around, something shifts in me and I can feel spring right around the corner. Turns out this year, we got 8 inches of snow dumped on us in Saint Louis, the same day that pitchers and catchers reported for the first day of spring training. I was a collegiate softball player, so baseball/softball is definitely something I know intimately having played competitively my whole life. I just absolutely love the sound of the ball as it snaps into the glove or the crack of the ball on the bat. Those are sounds of springtime to me. I don’t know what it is about baseball starting back up that puts a skip back into my step; maybe it’s the anticipation of listening to the games on the radio (I still prefer to listen to them than watch them) while floating in the pool or running errands, or just the promise of warmer temperatures and longer days just around the corner. Whatever it is, spring training energizes the feeling of happiness inside of me and also touches the little kid's place of pure joy, fun and excitement as well. So yes, if you reach out and no one answers, you might check the ball field. That’s likely where I’m going to be. I’ll see you there! Recently, something came together for me, in a piece of my own growth process actually, during which I connected some dots between now, present day, and my childhood, my past. I was recalling how fond I was of the children’s book, A Wrinkle In Time, by Madeleine L’Engle, actually the whole series by Madeleine L’Engle, and just reflecting upon wondering why that was the case as a child. The “why” behind things always fascinates me. I truly believe that there is a meaningful intention and purpose behind everything that we do, think, choose, feel, believe. I don’t believe in coincidence or randomness in the universe. I just don’t.  We may not always consciously know why something is happening, but I promise you, there is always a very important reason why it’s happening, even if our brain does not understand. So, I was quite delighted when I put two and two together and the dots connected about my fondness for this story. This is the story of how this happened and what I learned about myself from this experience.. I was talking with some friends about the idea of tesseracts and how it was a central tenet in this book’s story. And how it is described by Madeleine L’Engle as the “shortest distance between time and space”, essentially a “short cut” portal through space and time. (For an interesting read on more about tesseracts, check out this article.) Anyway, I was always fascinated (and terrified) as a child by the idea of a tesseract and completely and totally intrigued at the same time. A wrinkle in time…? Was that even possible? Was it not? How would I find a tesseract? Or even know if one was around? These were the kinds of questions I often asked myself as a child. I mean, why not. At the time it seemed far fetched, but absolutely thrilling as well. It also seemed a little bit scary of a notion too. I can remember an accompanying feeling of loneliness even at the thought of traveling through a tesseract and the distinct possibility of not making it back to this dimension easily, should I be lucky enough to stumble upon such a portal in the universe.  And so, as I was talking about this children’s story and how much I loved it, especially the idea of tesseracts, it suddenly dawned on me…. THIS IS WHAT I DO EACH TIME I TRAVEL BACK INSIDE IN MY OWN THERAPY TO HEAL ANOTHER PIECE OF OLD TRAUMA FOR MY INNER CHILD. I travel through tesseracts ALL THE TIME. So do my clients. We’re constantly going back in time, through the powerful vehicle of imagery, finishing up old experiences and living them out in a new way, with more emotional support this time around. What we do in this deep emotional healing work is travel back across our history, to recover something important and essential for living in the present moment. Exactly like L’Engle’s story in A Wrinkle In Time. And in traveling across time in these ways to clear out old energy of trauma, we clear out the pathways for new energy to flow through us. And I truly believe that we have the power to affect past generational healing as well as extend healing to those generations to come after us. So, what I would like to say to the little girl inside of me that used to wonder about wrinkles in time, tesseracts and time travel, it turns out Madeleine L’Engle’s story IS true!!!! It turns out that wrinkles in time do exist, tesseracts ARE possible, they are all around if you know where to look for them, and apparently we are pretty keen on helping people find their own tesseracts too. No wonder I was fascinated with this book as a little girl! Turns out it was a story about what I was going to be and do when I grew up. Isn’t this fantastic?!?!?!? I sure didn’t know it at the time, but I sure did know I was fascinated by this story and read it over and over and over. I knew it was pretty important to me nonetheless. So… the next time your kiddo or someone you know or love has a fascination with a story, a song, a movie, a piece of art or something along those lines, don’t diminish this passion. It just might be a very important message from their spirit about something relevant to what they were born to be in this lifetime. Gotta run. I hear a wrinkle in time calling my name. Whew. The first day of a new month, it’s hard to believe that we are already one month into a new year. So far, 2021 has been fast and furious. So much has happened in the country and in the world, in so little time. I realized the other day that I lived January like I was racing something, trying to get somewhere as quickly as I could, accomplishing as much as I possibly could along the way.  I’ve never been great about “dialing it back” when it comes to life, pretty much everything that I do, I throw myself into 150%. Especially when I am stressed. It’s kind of an “all or nothing” end game for me, that is at least when I’ve lost connection to my center. Which, after the month that we just had, on top of being almost ONE FULL YEAR into lockdown due to COVID19, makes a whole lot of sense to me how this can happen. It happens so easily these days with all that each of us are contending with in light of everything going on. It used to be really difficult to be gentle with myself when I caught myself operating in “high gear”, trying to outrun something. Nowadays, it doesn’t take me much time at all to be able to bring compassion towards myself for doing whatever I can when another piece of my process opens up inside. See, that’s the thing: we don’t always consciously know when we’re trying to get away from something going on inside of us emotionally that has caused us to be triggered. It just happens quite unconsciously most of the time. Often, we only recognize that we’ve been operating from a triggered state, after the fact. Sometimes after things feel like they have “blown up” or taken a turn “for the worse” in our life. That’s ok. Unless you grew up in a family in which it was a priority to attend to your emotional well-being, in a true, body-centered kind of way, you probably did not grow up to become an adult that, by default, can quickly tune into what’s going on with you emotionally. In order to become more aware of when you’ve lost connection to your center, you have to consciously commit to building that awareness. And this is how growing consciousness begins: after the fact. When you’re standing there looking at the mess, wondering how this happened. Again.  In order to grow consciousness about this deepest and unconscious part of yourself, you have to surround yourself with people and opportunities to receive loving feedback about what you’re doing, your energy, your behaviors, thoughts, you know the drill.
And it takes a lot of courage and commitment to seek out that kind of honest support that will lovingly reflect back to you what they see about you. And then it takes a double dose of courage to actually take in what they share about you. So, that’s what I am focusing on for February: slowing things down and working on being more present in the moment, whatever it is that is happening in my life. You know, it’s not about finding any sort of “state” of existence and staying there, that makes us happy. It’s the ability to bring love and support to whatever it is that is going on at any point in time in our life. That’s both the hardest thing to do for many people and yet the essential practice if you want to find lasting peace and satisfaction. So, the next time that I find myself feeling like I am frantically “pedaling in the sand”, I am going to experiment with living this as an invitation from the universe to slow the pace of my heart and invite what needs to emerge for my next piece of growth, to show up. Like the pace of the earth that supports us, while in constant motion, the growth of your highest being moves so deeply and subtly that it’s easy to miss these precious moments for growth. |
AuthorKate is an INFJ-3 on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and Enneagram. Archives
February 2021
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