Poetic Revelations: Karmic Resurgence
Ruptures and the River of Vitality
Listen when the impulse to move erupts, even if you are scared. The choice is done. The movement is made. ~ Deborah Anne Quibbel
This is a weekly publication for heart-centered warriors. Because Human-ing is harder than Adulting.
Selected Poems:
Loosen Your Grip, Deborah Anne Quibbel
When You Come to a Crossroads, Deborah Anne Quibbel
Dear Embodied Hearts and Dancing Souls,
Taking ownership of my time and direction is proving to be an act of surrender. Thank you for your patience as I find my new rhythms.
Karmic Resurgence. Our little home is experiencing quite some upheaval. One employer is experiencing a downtick in business, reducing paychecks. Alan continues to synthesize his new reality as a neurodivergent adult. Each week is a different challenge as he navigates relationships, seeking ground he has long lacked. This includes our relationship. At times the navigation is so humanly inelegant. Trauma, anger, his wounding triggering mine. That sentence then repeats itself, only this time it comes from me.
Everything seems like its falling apart. But it’s not.
We’re catching this wound-on-wound behavior for one thing. We’re starting to experience real shifts in our communication. Small, but sure. The rinse, lather and repeat version of this dance is so karmic I cannot stand it. His vitriol, when pointed at me, feels like a spear. Yet — get this — it is highly similar to a particular feeling I experienced growing up. The same experiences I bolted from. My fight or flight response in these moments happens so quickly that I don’t always catch myself. I respond the way I’m used to responding. Right here, in the numb of this reality, lies Karma. The way I was shaped as I careened to adulthood is interacting with the way he was shaped.
The Middle Act. I’m in the middle act of my life and its feels like someone’s given me an entirely different set of glasses to view my life-in-progress. There are moments I can see our dynamics unfolding in the moment as multi-generatonal theater which is truly fascinating. It goes back to our parent’s shaping, and their wounds dancing with their spouse and children. Its epic Shakesperean stuff and plays out beyond our comprehension.
At an impasse, we turned to non-violent communications (NVC). We started to see each other, over and over, as a human being trying to get an inner need met. When we stopped judging the need, we noticed a shift in our dance. We are learning valuable lessons like getting clear on our needs and requests. I celebrate this Shift.
First, I am listening to his beautiful human need in the Now. No longer about escaping misguided parental authority from my past, this is about my choosing to return to a compassionate relationship in the Present. Second, I get to be honest in these conversations too. His needs are forcing my clarity on my needs, wants and boundaries. There is a vitality that gets to come forward now in our new agreements, one that wasn’t necessarily Alive before.
Only when I sail past the human judgemental words and actions can I begin hearing what he is asking for, body to body. In this case, my new agreement is to let go of some responsibilities that I had long taken over. In doing so, I am also choosing to close a Karmic cycle. That’s because my “overtaking” behavior was a direct response to my childhood shaping. I can pratically hear the Universe telling me that its time to rid myself of responsibilities that I carry from fear. This is the way my Present rewires itself along a different trajectory from my Past.
What Lies Beneath. Life is only falling apart when I’m clinging to things in the status quo that are asking to change. Well guess what? This time, I’m not clinging!
“Listen, O lord of the meeting rivers,
things standing shall fall,
but the moving ever shall stay.”~ epitaph for Shiva by Basaveshwara, 12th century teacher and reformer
The reality of my life is that it has felt like a series of punctuated ruptures. Each time a period inserts itself into the story I was creating. Picture a long run on sentence going merrily along until BOOM. A period smacks me across the face. The ties I enjoyed — the life I was creating — is suddenly no longer there. Each time I faced Loss, it told me a painful story. How I wasn’t worthy of being wanted, embraced, or considered. That story knocked me out each time I reached the end of the road and faced the period. Each time I rebuilt, trying to prove that story wrong.
After any rupture, the old feelings still rise. Yet, with five years of climbing into my body with InterPlay, that story of sorrow and pain has become … less compelling. With repeated movement, storytelling and play, I discovered there was more to me (in me) than this familiar, narrow story. Fear and compartmentalization gave way to curiousity and possibility. I found pieces of me that like to live: connect, rant, kvetch, read poetry, make up tunes, write and more!
I give loving attention to sorrow and pain but I am way more curious about pathways for joy and vitality. I am more interested in being Real and Here.
Its a great way to Be as I head into my college reunion.
This time, I recognize the ruptures as a way for my husband and I to make way for the change that wants to come forth. Something vital in him is rising to the forefront. If this is happening for him, then its happening for me whether I am ready for it or not. Life is signaling old agreements aren’t serving either of us authentically. As long we respond truthfully to the rupturing, it can clear the way for more of our authentic Vitality whatever the status of the relationship. Its exciting actually. Its Life’s way of Moving us forward so we grow from one way of Being into the next.
We stumble about but we make way for this.
With so much Love for you, your journey and your unfolding.
Stay #heartwoke.
Monisha