Fling wide the gates

“Sometimes people let the same problem make them miserable for years when they could just say, So what. That’s one of my favorite things to say. So what.

—Andy Warhol

I’m tired of hearing it, this voice in my head, this ugly mean girl voice. I’m tired of it. Get out. It wears me out, it wears me down.

I’m tired of waking up with anxiety instead of joy. I‘m tired of all the interruptions I allow, that I give my attention away to such unimportant things. I’m tired of not standing up for myself. Misplaced attention becomes more tension. I’m tired of waking up with anxiety instead of joy.

I’m tired of letting myself be so influenced by others. I’m tired of silencing myself. I’m tired of being reactive. I’m tired of giving up what I want to accommodate everyone else. I’m tired of trying to make people happy. I’m tired of spinning in circles. I’m tired of never ever ever ever ever doing enough or being enough.

I’m tired of giving away my privacy, my solitude, my autonomy, my space, my emotions. I’m tired of my own self-sacrificing habits. I’m tired of how I follow a lead, how I look for a decision, how I roll with the punches. NO. Stop punching me. That’s the thing to say. Not okay. Not whatever. NO.

Hover hover I’m a helicopter weak passive stereotypical checking the boxes checking the boxes this is how I spend myself this is where I put myself into these tiny thoughts tiny needs tiny endless relentless voices in my head mundane boring boring bored unimportant all of it all of it all of it

I give myself to this? I make all this more than the deepest highest core needs and wants?

I’m tired of hiding. I’m tired of using all these things as an excuse. I’m tired of feeling anxious, guilty, blocked, ashamed, sad, defeated. I’m tired of accepting decay. I demand more. I am for growth. I am for life. I am for the sun shining on my beautiful shoulders while I dance and dance and dance and dance.

I’m tired of delaying until the right time. I’m tired of devaluing my own ambition. I’m tired of making myself small and acceptable.

Stop. Hard breath. Deep breath. Big breath. Fill up those lungs, girl, are you ready? Are you ready? Are you ready? Are you ready?

I take responsibility for all of it. I take it all back. It’s all mine. I take it all. I breathe it in. It’s mine: my choices, my allowances, my energy, my attention.

I claim my power. I’m reclaiming my time. I’m reclaiming my energy. I’m reclaiming my voice. I’m reclaiming my self.

I don’t feel powerful. I feel stuck. I own the feelings. I take them on, I see them, I name them, I embrace them: here I am, feeling stuck. Here I am, a being as ancient and powerful and wise as the universe, feeling stuck. Here I am, a dust mote on a spinning ball orbiting a mass of incandescent gas, feeling stuck. What a beautiful hilarious picture of life. I accept this. I accept it all. I love it: this irony. How does it work, the divinity hidden in these atoms, the energy coursing through these molecules.

I’ve grown too big for the psychic space I used to occupy. I am new wine bursting out of old wine skins. I am the fruit bursting open, dying, demolishing the old shell to release the seeds. Watch me grow, watch me grow, watch me bloom and grow.

The fruit bursts open to fling off the old: false beliefs, heavy old dogmas, guilt, obligation, burden and limit and burden and limit, circles whipping around me, snapping at my heels, binding and binding, growing smaller and smaller…

…Until I cannot bear it, until I break out, break into the open, find the air, fling wide the gates, risk it, relinquish myself into freedom.


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