16.12.20@Žabljak, Montenegro
It was a fuzzy day.
I had slept on the bed downstairs in my cabin, close to the fireplace. It is nice to fall asleep with the warm light and sounds of burning wood. I slept peacefully until cold air came back at night and woke me up twice. Back asleep I dreamed, I think of my family, for sure of Nila, my lovely little niece, and I felt perfectly rested when I woke up, grateful for good sleep.
The night before I was awake for more than 2 hours. I then had done my best to stay calm and patient until I finally and miraculously fell asleep again. I had this slight feeling, that again, there were emotions waiting to be seen and felt, old, familiar emotions that were still not processed to the point where they could leave my system. There is something left that wants to show up again. Welcome to bottleneck December! The narrow point in an hourglass, where everything I felt and experienced in 2020 has to go through again.
This morning I woke up at 07:30 and was immediately drawn outside. The morning sun was shining on the snow-covered mountain range just in front of my little porch and the view was stunning. An entirely white landscape in golden sunlight. I hurried not to miss the moment for good pictures, then I rushed to start lighting the fire, as it would take a while for the cabin to heat up. I also needed hot tea and coffee this morning. So I started with the mission of making fire which was quite a challenge, as there was no small wood, the big chunks were not really dry and I didn’t have any paper or other quick aid to start it up. It took me more than 1,5 hours to get a steady burning fire. By that time I was hungry and without having meditated or done any yoga I didn’t feel really relaxed. My morning routine as start of my day is also part of the expectations I’m having towards myself, and I can get stressed and annoyed with myself, if I don’t manage to keep up with it, but that is a topic I should be confronted with some days later. This morning I did rolled out my mat again to do some asanas, distracted by the beautiful view and interrupted to take care for the fire. Not really Ohm or Zen, I guess.
I finally sat down to have a wonderful breakfast around 09:30 and thought about leaving for a hike before 11:00. This morning had taken already quite much time of my day. Just before I was ready to leave, my stomach started to cramp badly. I thought of it as early PMS, but it wasn’t. It was the tap-water I hadn’t boiled properly due to my impatience. Now I was staying home for the next hours.
I gave in, sat on the terrace in the sun drinking Raki and “detoxing”. Although it was nice to just sit there and enjoy the scenery I wouldn’t find my sacred inner peace, balance and centeredness that day. I kept getting up, running to the toilet, making tea and doing whatsoever. It was almost impossible to stay still and concentrate on writing my diary.
Besides my physical condition, I didn’t know what it was, that made me feel so restless and distracted. Already yesterday I found it hard to make a clear decision, there were doubts here and there, and thoughts about other options kept popping up. In the end I figured, it would be good for me not to stay in town but to move to that little wooden cabin in nature, and be without internet for some days. Maybe that was the detach I needed. I kept thinking and walking back and forth until I finally felt ready to go for a walk in the late afternoon.
It was good to move in the cold, snowy forest, just as expected. It cleared my head and I gained focus. Here and there wet snow fell heavily from the branches making sounds like the footsteps of an elephant, or of a bear. I knew it was the sound of snow, still, I sometimes stopped for a moment hoping that this time it might be a deer (not a bear though!). But there was no deer.
I didn’t really have a destination to go to, so I followed my intuition. I remembered that it was trust, that leads me my way and guides me home.
When I reached some wooden cottages I found my destination for today: a big wooden statue of a bear standing on two feet. To me it was a female bear, as the markings of the wood on her belly and chest looked like nipples. I sat down at her feet, leaned on her belly and listened to my heartbeat while drinking tea I had brought. It was the first moment that day I found peace and stillness within myself.
To me this wooden carving of a bear was a sign that I was on the right way, on my way. The bear is the one who keeps me warm and safe and who makes sure, that I will get through this winter without harm. The bear keeps coming back to me as image and messenger, just as it had appeared and given her power to the girl who walks the woods, to “Waldläuferin”, the girl who once was home to my soul. Now, after this encounter, I slowly walked back to my cottage and enjoyed the long sunset. This was just enough magic for today to open up my senses, so I wouldn’t remain feeling stuck in confusion.
Why am I telling you all this?, you might have asked yourself already. Well, I think we all have these days and moments when we don’t really know what’s going on, when we feel somehow strange, unsatisfied, unable to make a decision, unhappy without reason or confused and annoyed.
You don’t need to believe in karma, reincarnation of your soul, in universal power as a ruler or a higher consciousness guiding you, still you can try to find out what’s behind that feeling, if you want to.
I think the key to get closer to your very own answer, that lies within you, is retrieving yourself from all distraction, finding silence, listening to your breath, your heartbeat and watching your thoughts getting calmer. Once you find the balance between inner peace or silence and focus you can ask yourself what it is you are holding on to. What is it you are afraid to let go of? I think holding on to something and being afraid to let go causes this restlessness.
We are, more often then it serves us, holding on to habits, thoughts and feelings that are no longer useful, as life has changed already. These relicts of our past keep popping up every now and then and make us feel in ways we don’t want to feel. Finding out what it is, that is left within us, untouched and unchanged, can be the first step in letting it go, to make space for whatever wants to come, and moving on with something new or just without the old feeling we were holding on to. By letting go we get closer to the truth of things, the truth our life speaks, right here and right now.
Back to my story: after having watched a beautiful sunset I was ready and calm enough for meditation, and I got a bit closer to the emotion that was stuck inside me and had made me restless. It showed up from somewhere between my abdomen, heart and head, world and universe, 2020 and 2021.
It was the feeling connected to Christmas, which would be just a week from now. My emotions were responding to tradition and habits I know and I had lived so many times. There is this one ruling image and experience inside of me, how to celebrate Christmas: at home with family, happy together and satisfied, with good food, wine and warmth.
…
I don’t know where I will be this year, but I won’t be home.
I don’t know if I will be with someone, but it won’t be family.
I don’t know if I will be happy and deeply satisfied, I might miss something and someone, I guess. Here is no one I would like to celebrate with, and with whom I could share food, warmth and love.
Is there no other option?
No other way of surviving, living, experiencing and maybe even enjoying these 3 days next week? Without feeling abandoned, lonely or in doubt about my own decision to be travelling alone on Christmas? What is it I was really longing for? What do I need?
The old, well-known wish to feel fully accepted and loved the way I am, showed up again. This time it showed up as wish to feel nothing but love, happiness and serenity spending Christmas in the way EVERYONE does, with my family.
Who doesn’t know that wish and who does keep experiencing this, year after year? I think there is a lot of “this is the way it’s supposed to be” in it, more than any other time in the year. So I wondered if this was also my wish.
I don’t know how it would be like spending Christmas with my family this year, but I do know that I made the right decision to follow my intuition and go on this roadtrip, here and now. To feel the way I wish to feel is just as much my responsibility, as all of me is.
I experience, that much of me has changed within the last 2 years. I see myself differently and now I know, that before I didn’t really know myself. I didn’t know all of me, couldn’t show all of me and therefore couldn’t feel entirely accepted and loved. I didn’t accept and love all of me myself. This is where responsibility and selfcare starts.
It is up to me to know myself and be able to show myself, so I can be accepted, respected and loved for who I am. Not getting there would always bring me to the limit of my comfort zone, no matter where or with whom.
I know now, that I needed these two years and still need this time and space for myself, to give room to these old feelings to show up and to all the aspects of myself to become vivid parts of me, not hidden or suppressed in any way. They need care and love to grow and not to feel intimidated by
“this is the way it’s supposed to be”-forces of society, habit and tradition.
This roadtrip on my own is the way I need to walk to grow strong, and it leads me to be far away from home and habits, family and the well-known comfort-zone.
Here I find the time and space I need to see and give room to all of me, within myself and for myself, to unfold like a hundredfold folded box needs space to unfold.
And I am looking forward to getting there, to come back and go on as the person I am, with all of me, hopefully in harmony. These are my years of apprenticeship years or life’s not easy at the bottom.
The good thing is, I start to feel home inside myself, now that I discovered and welcome all of me, I give it a home. I am home.
What does that do to my wishes and desires? And what is it really I am dreaming of? Back to Christmas and life as it was? The thought of it seems outdated by now. And even if, would there be a way back? I don’t think so. I wouldn’t want the way back.
When my imagination runs wild, I see myself spending days like Christmas with friends, family, neighbors, the man I share this unique, unconditional love with. Anyone I feel a heart-to-heart connection with.
What matters is that we share love and understanding for each other, that we accept, respect and love each other just the way we are, for who we are, right in that moment. Christmas could be spending time together to share stories, food, laughs, music and dance, silence and peace, hugs and candle light, and if someone feels like crying his or her soul out, we will be in there together, supporting each other. Being there, wherever it may be, just the way one feels those days. Sharing hearts and giving a home to everyone.
Home is where the heart is, whenever you can be the way you feel, the way you are, and the way you want to be, and whenever you are accepted and welcome in whatever way or mood you appear on that doorstep.
I don’t dream of Christmas as being the happiest, most spectacular, most satisfying or most romantic experience of the year, I dream of Christmas to be authentic, free, welcoming all emotions, laughs and tears, dressed in heels or jumper.
I dream of Christmas to be 3 days in december, just like the other 362 days a year could be like.
On the road with Dre 
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