Where the river meets my soul...

Sometimes we hold so tight to it that when we finally surrender to it, it's a release. I feel this when I realize I'm clenching my teeth and locking my jaw. My tongue is glued to the roof of my mouth and even though I'm not looking at myself, I know I'm likely wrinkling my forehead. Then there are my shoulders - cinched up next to my ears. It's a wonder I can walk at all sometimes. But then I release it all and let out a sigh, like I had been holding my breath. It's absolutely amazing when you can breath again, isn't it.

My healer placed her hands under my spine as I lay on the massage table. She had been massaging my shoulders from behind me while talking to me about why I decided to get a therapeutic massage. I tell her that I knew I was out of alignment and that I was hoping she'd be able to help me with my hips. She begins to tell me that she will have a look and then stops in mid-sentence, closes her eyes and removes her hand from my skin while leaving it under me. She tells me that she's checking the area that connects the heart and spine. With another breath and her other hand she moves her hand to my sternum, my heart center. After a breath or two, she says, "I sense...something is frozen here." Like a dam breaking, my tears start to flow down my cheeks without any possible way of stopping them. I tell her that I had tried every heart-opening pose in yoga, including a million or so backbends to crack my heart open but the f'er wouldn't budge! Without judgment she says, "we'll work that out." And I believed her.

Two and a half hours later, I rose from the most amazing massage I've ever had, in a daze like I've never felt, um, naturally. As I am leaving her, she hugs me and says, " you might feel a little sad and emotional in a few days. When that happens, just nurture yourself."

Three days later, I entered a funk. I had this crud in me, at my core, that wouldn't leave me. I went to sleep with it. I woke up with it. I dreamed some of the weirdest dreams I've ever had - which says a lot because I'm quite the avid weird-dreamer. And then I throw in a CD as I'm driving, the sun is shining, I have the day off and it's beautiful out...and I hear, :

"This is the sound of one heart starting to heal. This is sound of faith stepping out of fear. This is one lone dreamer, learning to fly. This is the sound of love, reaching out from the storm - calling through the thunder, through the anguished wall. I can feel the winds, beginning to turn.... one small light starting to burn."

And again, a flood of tears. Tears. Everywhere. Blurring my vision but so radiantly beautiful with the sun. I realized where I was in time. That frozen part of me? Thawing. Finally. And the sadness that fell upon me was familiar but different. I surrendered to it...listened to it. I knew I needed to face that life and emotions change. We change. I had changed. I needed the solitude I never took after my heartbreak. I needed to turn inward.

Most of all I desired freedom from expectations. Mine and everyone else’s. It just leads to disappointment...and at this point, that is an emotion I don't need to evoke in anyone. So I let him go. I let go. And I cried but mostly out of relief. I can be me. I listened to my inner voice for the first time in a long while and surrendered to the eventuality of my situation. I need to grow as a whole in myself so I can feel complete on my own again.

It's like coming home.