Caring For Yourself Through Transitions

Ever since I opened my retail storefront, Three Rabbits Apothecary, my life has been changing pretty rapidly. The way that I spend my time in particular has shifted.

I opened the store in August, so at the time that I’m writing this about three months ago, and this is the first time I’ve ever run a retail store of my own. I’ve noticed recently that I feel like I should have it all figured out and I should know everything that I’m doing—and I don’t. I’m still figuring out how to run my shop and work on my other projects, like writing my book and recording my weekly podcast.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve had Violets appearing to me over and over again. This is an essence that supports sensitive, highly perceptive people, to have their gifts recognized by others. As I’m putting myself out in the world as a creator now more than ever, those fears of being misunderstood as a highly sensitive person rise to the surface. This has been something that's really stopped me from taking up more space in the world, and especially take up more space like as a creative person many times in my life.

As a result of opening my storefront, I’m becoming more and more open to new ways of doing things in my life and in business. This has led to making choices about finishing my book, starting my podcast, and opening my free online group to facilitate deeper conversations. Through all of these changes, I’ve had to come back and check in with myself about how I feel.

Checking In With Yourself Through Life Changes

As a sensitive person I’ve often struggled with change and felt overwhelmed and overstimulated when I am outside of my routine.

In the beginning, I kept saying, “I feel like I’m handling this surprisingly well!” 

Part of the reason why I felt capable of rolling with the transition is because I spent the last 5 years really deep in learning how to be with myself through change.

In my early 20’s, when I got divorced and came out, I had to learn how to be with myself through big BIG change that was noticeable to other people. Changes that required social media announcements, at least by our modern voyeuristic standards.

At a minimum, changes that required multiple changes in address.

Those kinds of BIG CHANGES or maybe LIGHTING THE TOWER ON FIRE moments, give us really clear indications that we need to take time for some inner work and reflection. They show us the holes that need to be given attention in a very obvious way.

But while opening my shop was a bit of LIGHTING THE TOWER ON FIRE moment—it came as a result of many, many, what I call CAMPFIRE moments.

We do this all of the time, we do this, honestly, on a daily basis, where we have different options of pathways that we can take. We have different options available to us about how we are going to spend our time how we are going to use our resources and our energy, and what we're going to invest in them.

And if we really practice having an awareness of this process of noticing what feels generative, meaning is that the way we use our energy feeds us in some way, the way that we're investing our time, is feeding us and giving back to us in some way. And at the same time, noticing what's not generative to us, what's not feeding us what's not bringing energy back to us.

This is not about always being on or always need to focus on growth or always building something new, because decay and release and letting go is also a part of the natural cycle and the natural rhythm. This is about looking at the cyclical nature of the way that we're using our energy to ask ourselves…

• Am I going all out all out all out?
• Do I have time for myself?
• Am I listening to myself?

Get Clear on What YOU Actually Enjoy

This is where the wisdom of Violet, who I mentioned at this beginning of this post, is so incredibly important for people who are sensitive. I say that in a way of with the utmost respect and honoring that, when you are a sensitive person, maybe you have a sensitive body, you have a sensitive nervous system, you have a deep awareness of what's happening around you all of the time, you need time to be able to go inward and to regenerate and to rest. It's absolutely a necessity to living your life and doing what you do best.

So many of us are honestly really disconnected with knowing what feels good to us, and knowing what feels generative to us and knowing what even maybe feels enticing to us.

We go through our lives, every single day, showing up and doing the things that we think we're supposed to do we are doing the things that we expect ourselves to do. Sometimes that's okay, sometimes we need to have somebody else give us instructions and guidance, because we don't necessarily what we know until we ask for help. Asking you for help is a really amazing thing. However, sometimes we are just kind of going through the motions and our life and we don't really stop to ask: Is the way that I'm spending my energy really getting me moving in the direction of what I envisioned for my life?

Sometimes we don't even really know what it is that we do envision for our life. I know, I ran into this so much, really, over the last four years, when I started my business, I wasn't necessarily planning to start my business. Rather, things aligned around me and I decided to follow the pathway that my intuition led me down. However, that also meant that I had to create a vision for what I wanted my business to do. When I did that, I created it within the confines of what I could dream of, you know? And what I could dream of was in part informed from looking to other astrologers.

Then at about year three of my business, I decided to work with a few different coaches. These coaches would ask me about my long term vision, and I just really didn't have the answers to these questions. It was because I was looking to other people to give me the instructions for how to do things, which was helpful, just to keep me moving forward. But it also meant that I didn't have this deeper connection to what my own personal vision was.

The result has been needing to do these kind of bigger changes, and what has felt like more seismic shifts in my business and my life. Now, these shifts don't necessarily always feel that seismic to the people who are reading what I'm writing or listening to my podcast—they don’t necessarily feel like BIG LIGHT THE TOWER ON FIRE MOMENTS. They’re more CAMPFIRE moments but they feel huge, like tremendously huge to me, because they shift how I’m showing up every day.

My point here is that we have the ability every single day that we go throughout our life to notice, okay, this is what feels generative, and this doesn't feel generative. As we do this, we’re noticing where the CAMPFIRE MOMENTS are, and we’re sharing them with other people too. When we notice these CAMPFIRE MOMENTS, it he helps us prepare and hold space when we need to use our energy for a BURN DOWN THE TOWER MOMENT, those bigger seismic shifts, that really push the edges of our ability to know what the best next step to take is

Practice Tracking Your Energy With The Moon

This helps to more easily identify what is going to be the pathway that is most authentically what we desire, and not just the pathway that we think we're supposed to take, or what we feel or expect ourselves to take, or we feel that other people expect us to take—which will ultimately help us make more aligned decisions we feel good about.

If this sounds like a skill that you're interested in learning more about, then I'm going to invite you to try something called Moon Mood Tracking. And what it is, is over a lunar cycle. Over a 28 day period, you follow the phases and signs of the moon to notice what your natural tendencies are during these lunar phases.

Come and join me for 30 days inside my free Mighty Networks Group to practice Moon Mood Tracking with others! We're start on October 25 on the New Moon Eclipse in Scorpio. 

And it's totally free to join! All you have to do is join the group here. (Already in the group? Just make sure that you're following the Moon Mood Tracking Topic)