When my girls were little I stressed about packing us to travel. I would freeze, make multiple lists, stress out, and generally agonize over the simple project of preparing three people to go somewhere. Anywhere.

 I was young when I got divorced and my main emotion for several years afterward was ‘overwhelm’. During the holidays we often went up to Alaska which required complicated packing (presents, winter clothes that fit growing kids). These could be reasons that I got stuck, but I’ve long had a pattern of applying ‘anxiety’ to lots of things.

About ten years ago I was going to NYC for a vacation. I had myriad plans: multiple locations, shows, dinners. I got the suitcase out a week ahead of time and gave myself almost a full day off of work to pack for the trip.

I did not enjoy that day.

 I had carried that pattern of ‘anxiety about preparing to travel’ past its shelf life.

Lest you think that I was new to travel or an anxious traveler, know this: I traveled ALL THE TIME. My family traveled constantly. In summer we flew to a cabin on a floatplane. In winter we went to a ski cabin by car. We were often down in the Lower 48 with my mom’s family where we again traveled from my grandparents’ home in Olympia to a family place on Hood Canal. My parents had a home in Hawaii.

I traveled, people.

 But I freaked out about packing. Every. Single. Time.

 We run patterns of fear and anxiety that do not serve us; programmed into our cells by early childhood experiences or previous lifetimes. You’ve heard me talk about the witch wound that prevents us from using our voices to speak our truths. We carry terror in our bodies about being able to make our own money or support ourselves because in previous lifetimes those functions were not permitted to us. 

The master teachers are gently and not so gently pointing out that in this challenge year our greatest tasks are to release fear and anxiety. 

Shannon, that is crazy. Do you even see all the things happening right now?

Of course I do.

And yet in my heart and belly, I know that as Einstein says, ‘We cannot solve a problem with the mind that created it”, and we are being called to serve in a new way.

Free of fear. Free of anxiety. Safe to receive, safe to create, and speak.

Pratipaksha Bhavana is the yoga sutra that I keep coming back to, again, again.

One sutra in a book of hundreds. It wakes me in the night. “When disturbed by negative thoughts, opposite ones should be thought of.”

 This is the divine feminine way. This is the new way. It may feel counter-intuitive, especially just now. Step away from your phone, from your focus on worry. Create healing for yourself.

For those of us with trauma (which is of course ALL of us), I believe we need gentle processes to unravel. We can’t release trauma through brute force.

 To heal my packing trauma I did the following.

1. I witnessed the pattern. It should not take me two days to pack for a five-day trip.
2. I felt gratitude for the pattern—I forgave it.  
3. I honored that it was no longer serving me and that I wanted to call in something different.
4. I created an identity of myself as an efficient easy packer and began practicing that skill by making lists of what to take on certain styles of trips. I have those lists on the Notes section of my phone: (three-day business trip, five-day summer vacation, winter weekend).
5. I gave myself increasingly shorter assignments when trips arose. One day. Half a day. Two hours.
6. I celebrated that I changed the pattern. 

Homework! Take a look at your patterns. Where are you applying old trauma logic to a situation that does not need it? Get out of your 3D brain here…is it a relationship, is it money? Is it your kids, world events? 

Recognize that Einstein is right! You cannot solve it ‘that way’. Create a list like mine to begin living into..a new reality! Release that pattern and live in your new more spacious reality. Report back to me---I want to hear about your lists!