The sun seemed to permeate my body, warming my solar plexus and the warmth spiraling out to every limb and hair follicle, eyelash, and fingernail. I let out a huge sigh of relief. Feeling this warmth after days of below-freezing temperatures and gray and snowy days felt like a gift from above. I felt like I could breathe, I didn’t have to constrict myself to stay warm, brace against the cold. I could let go. I felt light, spacious, and energetic.
Would I be able to fully embrace and appreciate this experience if I hadn’t first experienced its opposite? Would it be as exquisite in and of it itself?
I don’t think so.
So it made me contemplate what true change feels like when you are on the other side of it.
Here is my attempt at describing a sliver of what the experience of true, significant change feels like:
It’s like a warm and sunny 70-degree day after weeks of freezing cold, gray skies, and unending snow. It’s like a day to play without a worry in the world, when all decisions are made based on pleasure, delight, and love after months or years of living in lack, scarcity, and limitation, always cutting back, always questioning if you had enough to cover your expenses, always looking for ways to restrict and constrict your desires so that it felt hard to relax, breathe, and trust it was all going to be ok. It is like going on a week’s vacation to the most gorgeous places with all of your favorite activities after not traveling for years. It’s like eating at a fine-dining farm to table restaurant with all your favorite fresh vegetables, farm raised meats, grass-fed butter, and warm homemade bread after eating the same meals over and over again for months. It’s like otherworldly passionate, earth-shattering sex after years of little to no sex. It’s like the joy of seeing one of your favorite bands at one of your favorite concert venues long after the band is no longer a band and you had lost any hope of ever seeing them perform live. It’s like running on the trails through the forest as if you’re floating when you haven’t run for months. It is a joy that is hard to describe, an appreciation with no end, a love without limits.
It is an awakening. An awakening of the senses, the spirit, the soul, the heart, and the imagination. A call to dream bigger, to own who you truly are. It is an invitation to accept that all of this, all that you desire, is already yours. It always has been. It is waiting for you to claim it.
This is possible when you stop battling yourself – assailing yourself with self-doubt, distrust, and discouragement and instead, reclaim and own how truly powerful you are. Stress and anxiety melt away like the snow under the sun’s rays. The energy within you is just as transformative as the sun. It ignites you and powers you to be the catalyst of change in every area of your life.
So you soften, relax, trust, and appreciate all the tempests along the way to this unbelievable oasis – a place that is even better than you imagined. But, more than the place, it’s you you notice. There’s something different about you. An inner power. A sense of security. Irresistible confidence. Ease. Peace. Poise. Stature. Magnetism. You can’t take your eyes off of you. You’re amazing, You’ve come so far from those days of self-doubt, constant criticism, negativity, playing small, settling, frustration, anger, and disappointment. You hardly recognize you. Although you look mostly the same, there’s something within you – a fire – that is both powerful and inviting at the same time.
The ascent from madness to brilliance has left you shining, vibrant, and divine. You have been alchemized – all the impurities burned away so that all that is left is the true, magnificent you.
Shine on, you crazy diamond, shine on.