Created from trauma response and perfected in corporate America, my skills of intuition and interpretation as a predictor of behavior were the ones I used and relied on most. Constantly seeing a sense of control in a world where I was taught I had none, I became not only innately adaptable and able to respond to any situation with cool, calm, collected, and comprehensive movement, but I started to shift to heighten my superpowers so deep that I could predict the behavior of others. I would assess personality traits and behaviors, read vibe, and let my gut tell me who someone was after only just meeting them. I would draw generalized conclusions from past experiences, how people described themselves, and what they chose to do/show and more importantly, what they didn’t. All of this served me well in an environment where managing energy and emotion cleared the way for results and magic to happen. It downplayed the toxicity that festered in the corner and allowed success to come from places you wouldn’t normally expect. And to say it was all out of the goodness of my heart would be ridiculous. It was one-hundred percent a protection and performance play. It was the way I could seek and find some sort of control in a chaotic world.
I scanned and observed and absorbed everything. I was well connected, and intertwined and inside. The more data points, the better my predictive model and the more valuable I became. But more importantly, the more I could anticipate what would happen, be affirmed when it did, and then live in a world where I had curated much of my own experience. It was the ultimate fuck you to the unpredictable world I grew up in. The downside to this was clearly the limits of possibility AND the sheer exhaustion that came from this level of consistent energy manipulation.
Fast forward to a full midlife realignment later - where the two biggest things I’ve learned about myself are that my connection to energy and my intuition are in fact the most important and reliable things I bring into this life, but I had been using them to completely limit myself and the world around me instead of letting them be the guides for life they were meant to be. And its in this place where I know and have decided to move my life into an entirely different direction that I have to make the big shift from seeing an outcome and methodically moving there with surgical precision to letting go of outcomes all together and waiting to respond to things to let them unfold in magical and mysterious ways. It’s literally the exact opposite of what I’ve been doing the past twenty years.
I keep telling myself that my life is now flow and not control. I ride the current instead of building bridges and damns to control it. I know the energy I’ll have left over will be miraculous at some point but it’s taking everything I have right now to deconstruct old habits and patterns and behaviors drilled in me like scar tissue.
I built an entire identity on being a force to be reckoned with. The ‘we don’t know exactly how she does it but we’re also a little scared of her so we won’t ask’ persona is being shoved out to pasture. She was awesome and stubborn and determined and scared out of her mind. I love the idea of retiring her and letting her just rest.
I’m excited and nervous to let the next version of me unfold. Right now I’m just a crazy person who quit her marriage, job, and entire life to reparent herself, heal from developmental trauma, play, create, rest, heal, and discover what’s next. Flow not control. Some days the current moves so fast.