I woke up with "Windfall" by Son Volt in my head this morning. Actually, I woke up to a very loud crow cawing outside of my bedroom window, and as I slowly gained conciousness, the song started playing in my head.
As I've mentioned before, I often wake up with songs in my head and I've found that if I pay attention to the lyrics, there's generally some message there for me that pertains to something going on in my life.
I know this sounds really out there, but I've learned to trust it and not shine it on. We're constantly getting guidance from our surroundings in one form or another. It just takes us paying attention, and slowing down enough to "get it".
The song's opening lines are:
Now and then it keeps you running
It never seems to die
The trail's spent with fear
Not enough living on the outside
Never seem to get far enough
Staying in between the lines
Hold on to what you can
Waiting for the end
Not knowing when
Its from an album called "Trace" that came out in 1995. This record has played a major part in my romantic life over the years. The year this record came out, I was first considering leaving my husband. He was wasted all the time, out of work, and a real emotional drain. He was also verbally abusive, and I was losing all sense of myself. I went to Minneapolis for a week to visit my friend Mark about a week after this record came out. We played it over and over again, and I cried as I told him what was going on in my life.
Now what does any of this have to do with me today? Well, alot actually. The emotional space I was in back in 1995 was turbulent to put it mildly. I was getting a pretty strong feeling I needed to leave my marriage, but I was plagued with fear and guilt and "what ifs", knowing I needed to make some pretty major changes in my life, but too scared to take that first step.
Its a very similar state of emotional turbulence for me in present time. Fear has kept me stuck, kept me running in between the lines. Knowing I needed to step outside of what has been a safe if very unsatisfying existence, and take a chance on the unknown.
These last few days, I've come to notice that little voice inside that is judgmental and critical, popping up everytime I decide to do something that might piss people off, or worse, make them think I'm losing it. Fear is the underlying emotion that drives that voice. "What if you make a mistake" "What will poeple think".... that sort of stuff.
But I am seeing the only way to get those voices to shut up is to have courage and listen to my inner guidance that never seems to fail me, as long as I trust it and take a leap of faith. I'm tired of always doing what other people think I should, just because it will make their life easier. What about me? What about my life? What about what I want?
So I make a decision that doesn't work for other people. What's that to me? I have to face the fear and make decisions for me, based on trusting I know what's best for me. That's all I can work on. Me. I can't change what other people think, and I certainly can't make them be ok with the decisions I'm making. Its not my problem. They have to figure that out for themselves. So they make a really bad decision and think I'm supposed to turn myself inside out to make it right for them. Its not my job to fix other people's lives, and I don't expect them to fix mine.
Only I can do that. Only I can face the fear, trust myself and drive out side of the lines, my hands firmly on the wheel, with faith as my guide that I'm going somewhere new, and will leave the fear behind.
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