Surrendering to the call

pearls of wisdom, letting go, and carving something new

Things are peaceful in a way that, only just a few years ago, I was desiring, hoping for, visioning

3 years ago, I was quarantined in a tiny Queens apartment feeling burnt out, stuck, anxious, frenetic, and tight. I remember being on a call with a dear friend who said to me, “Right now, your home bases are fear, scarcity, and tightness.” And it was true.

At the time, I was a 24-year-old who had spent the three years prior to 2020 in transformative growth courses, learning how to heal, express, drop into vulnerability and connection, and melt some of my icy layers. In the four years prior to that, I spent in therapy painstakingly peeling back the instability of my childhood.

And yet, I was slow to integrate the pearls of wisdom, living between a rock (my avoidant patterns) and a hard place (forcing myself into a shape that no longer fit).

In August 2020, I turned 25 and moved out of my tiny apartment and into a new one. It was a dream — three massive windows, space to stretch in my room, roof access, fantastic roommates. Truly, it was a space I had visions of, my dream apartment come to life.

I was hoping (and fantasizing) that moving into this new spot would alleviate my stuckness and burnout, but alas, expecting something external to save you is a recipe for disaster.

a sunset captured in said room

In the three months that followed, I swiftly learned that fantasy is an illusion. As much as I wanted it to, a perfect apartment wasn’t going to shift my lingering feeling that something was deeply off.

Something can seem perfect to the mind but be so wildly off to your body.

So, I surrendered to the feeling and leapt off a scary cliff into the unknown. Without a plan, I quit my job, broke my lease, and moved out of my apartment by November, losing thousands of dollars in the process.

During this time, I also experienced friendship breakups galore. People whose wedding I was going to be in no longer speak to me. I became the villain in some stories (but that’s a story for another day). People I considered close friends didn’t check in. And all of this was shocking, unexpected, and true all at once.

My leaving was a fissure in the fantasy of my old life. People fell away because we couldn’t usher each other into the next stage of our lives, and I had to learn to trust that instead of resisting it.

the cliff felt foggier and way more menacing than this one

I then proceeded to enter a 6-month down — a period where, from the outside, it looked like I was doing a whole lot of nothing.

I would wake up, I would put on headphones and listen to music, I would take walks, I would sit and watch the clouds dance in the sky, I would let the hours pass, I would sage my space, I would go to sleep, I would repeat.

Even though it looked like I was doing nothing on the outside, I was doing so much internally. I was healing, slowing down, taking a deep breath for the first time in my adult life.

Finally, there was space to integrate the pearls of wisdom that had been sitting on the surface of my skin, nestled against my heart, waiting to be slurped into my body.

There was so much processing and moving and laughing and crying and letting it be messy. It was profound and transformational — an initiation into never abandoning myself again.

magic mountain cabin I lived in during my 6-month down

At the height of my processing, I would dream of what my life might look like. I hoped for slow days, creating my own schedule, being embedded in nature. I hoped for community, creativity, vibrance. I wondered if I would have a partner and what they might be like.

I wondered if I would feel like leaving was worth it.

And it was, and I do.

I am in gratitude to the version of me that blew her life up because she knew something was profoundly off. Do I think you need to blow your life up to make sustainable changes and integrate valuable medicine into your life? No. But that’s how it happened for me, and I wouldn’t change it.

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Years later, life is more vibrant, slow, easeful, and loving than I knew was possible. Inevitably, I will always be in and out of the goo phase, caterpillar-to-butterfly transforming and shape-shifting into truer versions of myself.

Always shifting, always pivoting, always evolving.

Creating this reality took deeply listening to my inner knowing. It took moving past my fear and trusting that something greater was on the other side of the cliff. It took a self-trust that was cultivated over many years of self-abandoning over and over and over again until it all came to a shrieking halt, and I had no choice but to listen.

I am forever grateful that I did.

My hope is that everyone on this earth finds the courage to follow the call of their heart, carve a new path, and let themselves have something greater.

On Instagram, I saw this post by Cory Muscara that encapsulates some of what this process was like for me. This slide in particular resonates:

Thank you for reading Sacred Attention.

<3
Christie