Follow the masses or be who you are?
Every day I wake and wonder what new information, the opportunity for learning, or realization will occur. Somedays its a sinking feeling and I reach for my phone and begin to binge social media, scrolling relentlessly through other people’s marketing of themselves and their lives. Wondering how they all look so happy most of the time, still annoyed that the Face ID on my phone never works in the morning, my eyes too puffy, my face recovering from hours of being squished onto my pillow.
As I make my morning cacao with coconut cream, the hastily handwritten note hangs on the wall behind my kettle shouting at me that “intentions and expectations matter!”. I spend the next five minutes wondering what my intention could be and if it's ok if I recycle the one from yesterday? I think it was something about loving myself unconditionally. I stir in the hot water to the deep brown powder, the flecks of the chili I also add every morning disappearing with the water. I start down at the cacao glass repeating my intention, glaring at the earthy brown liquid in the old peanut jar, willing my intention, this self-love and acceptance to come true. I thought the peanut jar would give a rustic ‘feel’ in photos, photos that I took the first few times I prepared the cacao and savored the taste. Six months later and some mornings I find myself moving through my routine with the same level of awareness of brushing my teeth. Happy to hold something warm in my hands as I whisper my morning prayers for protection, manifestations, and ultimately to be connected to my higher self, connected to the collective consciousness. To cease the mindlessness, robotic criticism, and stress.
If someone had said that this is what they did every morning in 2019 I would have raised my eyebrows and silently judged them for their naivety and wasted time. Maybe even chuckled to myself in the car as I drove away from that conversation, thinking that I knew best, that yoga and the occasional meditation were enough for me. That in fact, I was on track to being a successful adult, moving back to my home town and my recent declaration that I would soon buy a house.
I soaked up my family’s praise at my decision as they constantly reassured me that following their advice, their path, was the right thing to do. They acknowledged that yoga was a great form of exercise, but they preferred pilates or kickboxing. Spirituality was for hippies and fools and we, they repeated for the 1000th time, didn’t have any those in our family. The answer to happiness, to my never-ending restlessness and to mending the bottomless pit that was my self worth, rest in the stability of homeownership and outsourcing my decision making for my life to my parents. Follow they said, and it will all be ok. Be like us, they cheered as they raised their overpriced wine glasses to each, and you will be safe.
There was just one little problem. Every time I looked at an apartment my body had an allergic reaction. The real estate agent would show me around to a perfectly adequate apartment, meeting my convoluted list of requirements. I would inspect the kitchen and mentally note the decor changes that would be required, moving on to the first bedroom, and then it would begin. The itching. First slowing, like a passing thought I would itch my head, unaware what my hands were doing, within minutes I felt like all of my skin was covered in chickenpox, as I itched every part of me like a madwoman infested with lice.
The alarmed real estate agent offering a glass of water, as I grimaced and would run out to my car, wildly reversing in the driveway, heading full steam away from the apartment. Tears streaming down my face as I repeated out loud to no one as I drove along ‘I don’t want too’. Pleading to the universe not to force me to buy that apartment, or the last apartment or the one before that “please don’t make me” I would repeat over and over again.
After a while, I would make my way back to my parent's house, my temporary housing, sleeping in my childhood bed in the sewing room. Mum and dad said it was smarter than paying rent “Only fools paid rent”. So I stayed, 12 months, 13 months, 15 months, hiding away in the sewing room, gobbling down a block of chocolate every night as consolation for my freedom.
My parents would ask what the apartment was like, me always ready to list the faults I had put together on the drive home after the crying had stopped. It was too expensive, the ceilings were too low, the backyard wasn’t big enough, I didn’t like the suburb, one place literally felt like death and cigarettes. They would nod their heads in understanding and hand me their latest list of places they had found for me to look at.
Then I left on a work assignment, CoVID-19 hit and it was the perfect reason not to return. To waste my money on rent and enjoy every last cent of freedom it provided me. Now I make cacao every morning simply because I can because I want to because maybe it's good for me. It has iron and anti-inflammatory properties and all that jazz. It’s chocolatey and who wouldn’t want to start their day off with some good vibes, a hot chocolate, ready for what is to come, trusting that I can handle it. That follow my own instincts, my intuition is what matters in life. My mentor’s words ringing in my ears “You got given this life, it was given to you, no one else, so what are you going to do with it?” Watch this space.
