So many of us (me included) get mad at ourselves for getting stuck in procrastination rather than doing what we want to do.
For example, I was all jazzed up to get home after my big America adventure and dive back into Rockstar Priestess and being a big boss lady legend…
….but when I got home I spent one jet lagged day watching Gray’s Anatomy on the sofa, and then a second reading trashy vampire books, then a third relentlessly scrolling Instagram…
… and now it’s two days later and I’m still not quite out of the limbo procrastination mode.
What’s that about?
Why am I not jumping into my spiritual work or tending Rocky P like I intended to?
I’ve learned that what’s usually really going on when I fall into this limbo mode is that there is something I am afraid of feeling.
This is my description of procrastination limbo:
As I sit there watching the telly deep down I KNOW I really want to be doing something else. I feel that inner friction and resistance, like something tense and angry deep inside me that’s frustrated that I am not doing what is in alignment with my desires, and because it feels bad I want to drown it out. So I smother it, zoning out and watching TV for hours or loosing myself in a novel, so I don’t have to feel the pain of that fiery misalignment and instead drown it with the inner equivalent of heavy pillows and blankets.
I can’t take action on what I want to do, and I’m not fully present enjoying what I am doing because I am only doing it to muffle out the voice of disquiet – I’m in limbo, and it’s so easy to get stuck there.
I am LITERALLY trying to pretend a feeling I have doesn’t exist… and when emotions are not allowed to be in motion, everything stops.
The way out of limbo isn’t pushing through or forcing a change.
It’s literally just allowing yourself space to feel your feelings.
And, since I’m very human, it takes a good few days for me to be willing to allow myself to do that.
This week I’m back from a really powerful retreat where so much deep transformation took place. I went through a whole rebirth process with the sacred oils that was so intense and big and honestly a bit out-there crazy. I don’t think I’ve been able to process it entirely quite yet.
With the magic we worked in California, I’m not the same person and I can’t approach life the same way… so there is a piece of me that is grieving and resisting change.
All are beginnings start with a death of what was, and a that old part of me doesn’t want to die; it wants to survive and stay the same.
The more I ignore this inner grief and fear, the more it digs its heels in and stops me moving forward.
And I can’t actually transform unless I create space for my feelings to feel and flow through me.
God, I’d much rather just hide and numb out and watch TV rather than midwife the dying parts of me and grieve the ways that no longer work. Confronting those feelings and dealing with change is so scary and awkward and difficult.
Really though, doing the feeling part is never as hard or as painful as we expect it to be.
It often just takes five minutes.
And then we actually get to choose the path we really want.