Pardon Me, But is That a Snake in Your Gullet?
March 23, 2024
Happy spring, everyone!
My spring cleaning this year somehow started back in January with a half-assed resolution to do some clutter clearing. It has since taken on a life of its own; I can't seem to stop getting rid of stuff. What began with gathering donations of clothes and superfluous kitchen gadgets has spread to a complete revamping of the food I eat, the music I listen to, the emails I allow in my inbox, and what I do with my time. The process has occasionally been a little, umm…overwhelming, but the impact feels fantastic.
One practice I’ve committed to doing every single day, which I believe has served as a catalyst for all this clearing, is Morning Pages.
Many of you will know what these are if you’ve read Julia Cameron's quite famous book, The Artist's Way. They are essentially Stream of Consciousness Writing, which is when you pour your thoughts out onto the page without holding anything back.
Rather than get into the specifics of how to do Morning Pages, I will let Julia Cameron explain them to you here.
Just getting your thoughts out on paper may seem like it wouldn’t make a huge difference in the rest of your life, but here’s the thing:
Our outer world is always a reflection of our inner world
(and vice versa).
When we release thoughts that weigh on us or pingpong around in our minds, we free up space in our awareness for creative ideas and things that interest, nourish and delight us. This inevitably starts to spill over to the choices we make and the actions we take.
It is not, however, just thoughts that take up space in our awareness; we’ve also got some pretty complex emotions hiding out in there.
Recently, one of my favorite people asked me how to stop being sad about something very difficult she’s going through. I wish I had an easy answer, but what I’ve learned from my work as a healing practitioner is that until we fully process and integrate our emotions, we’re stuck with them. Literally. They get stuck in our biofield and inhibit our energetic flow, trapping us in limiting beliefs and life experiences we don’t want to be having.
Emotions have to be digested.
A year ago, I read a Substack post by the amazing Neko Case about roadrunners (yes, the bird from the Looney Tunes cartoons - there’s a real one perched at the top of this page). Her words deeply resonated with me, not only because I found them fascinating and highly entertaining, but also because they are so applicable to the human condition.
You can read her whole post here, but the biggest take away for me was this:
“A roadrunner can kill a large rattlesnake and if it’s too big to cram all the way down its gullet, the roadrunner just goes about its business with a big snake hanging out of its mouth until, inch-by-inch, the snake is digested by the prehistoric bird.”
You can probably see where this is going.
Most of us are that roadrunner, moving through life with an undigested snake hanging out of our mouths. Our snakes are made of bundles of experiences and emotions we have not yet processed. But unlike the roadrunner, we often have no real idea how to go about digesting them.
Energy work and sound therapies (like Biofield Tuning) can help tremendously with this, but there are also some simple practices we can all do on our own to get the digestive juices flowing.
I’m going to post a video soon explaining exactly how to do this, and I'm also considering doing a free workshop on this topic, so if this is something that interests you, please send me a quick note here and let me know!
In the meantime, get going on those Morning Pages!
And as a special thank you for those of you who made it to the end of this post, here’s a very silly haiku I wrote with all that newfound space in my brain:
Undigested snake
You are worse off than I am
Feeling grateful now.
;) Shelby