Stepping Out of the Box
It's One Big Experiment!
I’ve been reading through old journal entries re-tracing my steps over the last few years looking for clues, puzzle pieces, bits to help me make sense of where I stand today. It’s good. Really good and I’m not used to this.
As I transition into this exciting phase of my life, a career as a hypnotist, I am struggling with how I want to go forward with my writing. I have a trauma history. Don’t we all? And I’m playing around with writing stories with a turnaround, or perhaps do something with them that is really creative, like dumping the rules out of my make-believe box where they have always lived and let them scatter and break on the ground. Pick them back up, re-assemble the pieces and have something new. I don’t have any idea what shape might inhabit this idea, so I’ll be doing some experimenting going forward.
There are a few things I’d like to write about but not that. Nothing interesting happened today, and I’d much rather be going on a grand adventure. Maybe take a road trip and photograph run-down signs and billboards and old hotels whose marquees are burnt out. That’s where the heart of life is. In things worn down and out. That shows the life of the thing. Life lived, even if it was inanimate.
Well then, I want you to know is this and I haven’t told anyone else. I want you to know that if it’s the last thing I do, I am going to have an amazing life. And right now, it doesn’t feel very amazing. It feels dull. Boring. I want you to know that I wonder if I’m a double-edged sword. One side brilliant and the other side half crazy. And I want you to know that wouldn’t even bother me much as long as I was living an interesting life. “What is an interesting life”, you ask? It’s living life and doing things that make the inside tick, that make you say “OH” and mean it. It’s living from the senses. It’s noticing the small things, the tiniest things because then you have to slow down, maybe even get on one knee to look closely. To smell it, to listen. To see it really close up. Then you’ve been touched. By something greater than you in this great big world. And then the traffic lights and the grocery store lines and the honking horns don’t matter. Because you’ve lost yourself in a moment. A moment with just you and that thing you got lost in.
Since I have re-instated my clinical certification as a hypnotist I have entered a much deeper relationship with my unconscious mind (everything outside of normal awareness). It’s the place and space where dreaming comes from, where patterns live, where we will find beliefs and past programing. It’s also a repository of knowing and resources. I’ve been doing a lot of self-hypnosis as I’ve been enrolled and have completed an advanced training program over the last two months. As a result, I can say I feel freer, more loose, unstuck and feel better than I have in probably 20 years. I know, right? 20 years is a long time. And that is why I have begun to re-trace my steps. To explore how I got from there – that place – to here – now.
I’ll leave the light on.
This idea of "living an interesting life" resonates with me so deeply. I feel almost desperate to make it so, and yet, if you asked me to define what "living an interesting life" means, I'd fumble with the words. The definition is cemented in my soul, and when I experience interesting, I know it, but I can't describe it. I wonder daily how we access "interesting" and how much smaller and more accessible it may be than I think. Can't wait to follow your path of freedom and lightness towards this one big interesting life!
I love your definition of an interesting life, Rhaine - so inspiring! From my perspective, your life is already so incredibly interesting, but I understand that we often hold ourselves to a less forgiving standard than we do with others.
I also love your artwork here! It is so good to be reminded that "there is no box" - and especially so in such a fun way. It immediately made me think of "The Twilight Zone" opening credits back in the day. I can hear the music in my ear and cannot help but smile as I consider the box(es) I have placed myself in today.