Getting Our Feet Back Under Us

Creating Worlds by Knowing and Being Who We Are

Summer of 2021, I was still coming out of my COVID coma. I was getting back out in the world but with careful deliberating on each moment and time. The world was different in a way I couldn't quite put my fingers on. I was processing all the changes that had happened to me over a year of "sheltering in place." Frankly, I was pretty darned happy about the changes.

I was just still figuring out who the new version of me was.

Around this same time, the facilitator of a spiritual community of which I'm a part, Tantra Maat, reached out to me and told me about a vision she had for bringing the work of our community to a wider audience, to folks who were sensing the shift in themselves and the world, and looking for community to talk about it.

This community would be called CreateAWorld. You can join us at CreateAWorld | Substack.

You can also check out an archive of our conversations at CreateAWorld - YouTube.

As Tantra and I explored what we were up to, why people needed community now more than ever, why it was important to support them in inhabiting new ways of being, why it mattered that people could listen to the stories of those who were creating and nurturing their visions for what the world could be, we asked ourselves how would we describe to people what we were up to and we landed on this...

People needed to get their feet back under them. Post pandemic, many people were looking at their lives, their worlds and finding them insufficient. Things that had seemed so important before no longer did. They could see and sense a different world calling them but didn't always know how to move with that.

It's even more true now. As our world struggles with increasing political polarization, climate crisis, and economic divide between the "haves" and the "have nots," it can be tempting to throw in the towel, to feel that all we can do is watch Rome burn.

Old systems are dissolving as new ones begin to take hold. This in between creates instability, flux. The ground beneath our feet is frequently shifting. It can feel like we are living in a 24-7 earthquake.

So how do we hold on? How do we find our own stability amidst seeming chaos? How do we get our feet back under us?

We go inward.

We ask ourselves what matters to us right now, what is the most critical thing that deserves our attention, our focus, our energy? If I barely have the strength to take one step, what step will I take and towards what?

I decided, after years of thinking about it, to finally write and perform a solo show.

Responding to a call from Powerstories Theatre for new stories for their inaugural Voice of Women Theatre Festival, My Year of Saying No, about the first year of COVID and everything that had changed for me debuted October 2021.

I learned even more about myself and what mattered to me in writing and performing about that year than I had in the year itself.

I rediscovered the wise voice inside me, the one that loves me and wants me to flourish.

I got deeply acquainted with the whole choir of voices singing in my head, which ones were in alignment with the life I wanted, and which ones were holding me back.

Then I stepped back into my role as director, modulating those voices - amplifying some, lowering the volume on others.

It's not work that's ever "finished." It requires my attention every day. But it allows me to make choices that are in alignment with the world I wish to create.

I believe that the beauty of being human is that we get to decide how we spend this precious life. We get to choose how we show up. We get to decide what matters to us and how we honor that with our time and energy.

This also calls us to know ourselves and the codes by which we choose to live. Discovering who we really are doesn't just happen. It requires investigation, stillness, reflection. It asks us to tune into the core of our being and listen for who we are as a unique and essential part of Creation.

For those of us in Western cultures, this isn't instinctual. Capitalism would prefer we focus on the external, fill the spaces of our lives with things, work hard to be able to buy more and more and more. And it wants to displace our internal knowing, tell us what we should want based on what it wants to sell.

A 2023 survey of young people revealed that more than half of them wanted to be influencers when they grew up. That is a whole lot of influencing!

And while I appreciate the occasional review of a hair styling tool, I am not looking for someone else to tell me who or how I need to be.

If we really want to create the world that calls us, we need to be our own influencer. Rather than ceding our power to someone who thinks they know better for us than we know for ourselves, we want to get clear on the specific guidelines by which we choose to live - which may or may not include guidelines we've been given by others.

I'm not here to be like everyone else. I'm here to be me and you are here to be you.

When we each show up in our authentic expression (and as long as honor "harm to none"), we can expand the possibilities for flourishing. We can experience Paradise. We can create whole worlds.

Want to get your feet back under you? Get clear about what matters to you - even if it doesn't matter to another living soul. Find the world that is calling you - even if it doesn't exist yet - because it might just be your calling to create it.

As Marianne Williamson reminds us,

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.

Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light, not our darkness

That most frightens us.

We ask ourselves

Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be?

You are a child of God.

Your playing small

Does not serve the world.

There's nothing enlightened about shrinking

So that other people won't feel insecure around you.

We are all meant to shine,

As children do.

We were born to make manifest

The glory of God that is within us.

It's not just in some of us;

It's in everyone.

And as we let our own light shine,

We unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.

As we're liberated from our own fear,

Our presence automatically liberates others."

There is no greater stability in the midst of change than being the expression of the world you feel in your bones and hold in your heart.

So find your light and shine it. Tend to what you love.

What step will you take next?