I was cozy in bed with the blankets pulled up tight. I had just crawled into bed when the ticking of the heat turning on started. As I lay there in the silence of the night listening to the ticking of the heat I began thinking about a prior version of me. 

I began thinking about the woman who would lie in bed at night, cold and shaking, and praying that the tick tick of the heat would start. 

Hours later, I was finishing my nighttime routine and getting ready for bed. My phone was on silent, sitting on the headboard. I heard a buzz and knew that someone had texted me, but I wasn’t in a space where I wanted to check my phone. My nervous system was calm, my mind was calm, my body was calm and I wasn’t interested in taking the chance of changing that right before going to sleep. 

There were versions of me who would have tried to prevent her from having the book fall on her and scare her, but this version of me knows that sometimes we need to experience the consequences of our own actions to understand why we shouldn’t do something. So I sat holding my cup of tea, watching what was about to happen.

Years ago, I would have known I needed to attend the workout, but I would have felt resentful that it would be so difficult. I would have whined about it to friends and woken up on Sunday morning dreading the workout. It felt nice to be in a different mindset now.

As I stood staring blankly out the window, I recognized that I was thinking rather than being present with cooking or looking at the view that had originally caught my attention. Why was I in my head, I wondered. It would have been easy to process that question in my mind, but that simply meant doing more of what I had been doing. As I shifted my awareness into my body, into presence, I realized just how uncomfortable my body felt.

I closed my eyes and moved my awareness from the outer landscape to the inner landscape of who I am. I can remember days when I would have tried to rush this process, but those days are long gone. I now allow a slow and gentle shift as I sink into myself, knowing that the process will look and feel different each time. 

I washed the dishes that had been left in the sink the night before. 

I emptied the dishwasher and reloaded it. 

I started a load of laundry and folded a load left in the dryer from yesterday. 

I wiped the crumbs and spots off the counter and wiped them down with a towel.

He went on to tell me that a teenager at the trampoline park was being mean. He was calling him names. He called him fat, and he laughed in his face. 

“Mom, I didn’t do anything to deserve that. I wasn’t even talking to him or interacting with him. I didn’t do anything, and he made the choice to be so cruel,” he said.

The house was filled with people and excitement. The noise level was far outside our normal volume inside of the house. The energy of Christmas was palpable in the house and, if I am being honest, was slightly more than my nervous system could tolerate even though I loved everyone in my home and I adore holidays with family.

I jumped up and ran towards him as he stood frozen, pointing out on the porch. An enormous Bobcat sat on our 3-season porch, looking intensely into my eyes. I stood staring back at the magickal animal, with eyes locked on each other, energy surged through my body. The Bobcat was white and grey with pointed ears and intense eyes. It stood close to 2 feet tall with a stillness and a calmness that sent chills down my spine.