Remembering My Soul Food

Lately I’ve been feeling empty and stuck, like a little deflated balloon…tied in an impossible knot. This phenomenon is something I experience roughly every 2-5 years and, I reckon, is pretty unavoidable. It’s part of my restless nature as a spiritual creature on this planet. Maybe it has something to do with being an Aries. Maybe it’s because I have epilepsy and a busted-up brain. Maybe it’s because I’m pretty lazy and change my mind and desires too much. Whatever. It’s just how I am. I can never really sort out why, so the why of it probably doesn’t matter too much.

When I get stuck, it’s frustrating, but it’s also highly motivating. I don’t like to stay here– like Eeyore or sad-faced Charlie Brown. A fire blazed up under my arse and the dynamic passion grows to get things moving, however frightening that is. I want to make changes, move life’s furniture around the proverbial room. My husband asked, “Would it help to buy some new pants?” with his tongue slightly in cheek.

The realization of stuck-ness is like an asleep foot coming back awake, all prickly and numb. It’s evidence that I’ve lost touch with myself and that I haven’t been listening to that still, small voice inside. Something deep within whispers, “Hey, wake up, Crazy!” It tells me that I’ve been on autopilot way too long, coasting through life, not engaging with it enough, and not asking enough questions. When I feel stuck it probably means I have forgotten part of who I am, and that I need to take a moment (or two) in order to remember.

The last time this happened I had forgotten that I was a passionate person, capable of great physical and emotional love. I could have gone through life like a small metal robot, but I remembered that part of myself and went back to collect it, at great cost.

This time around it seems like I’ve been forgetting that I am a living, spiritual individual, capable of great depth, insight, and foresight. In short, I have forgotten that, as a human, I am gifted with the capacity to relate to and even communicate with God. Did I truly and completely forget? No. But I have been living in a state of forgetfulness, as though my life needed no remembrance in order to survive.

Two weekends ago, however, on a trip to Colorado’s Western Slope, I got into my blue Subaru all alone. The bike was on top of the car, the windows were down, and there was no sound other than the wind. No radio to fill my head, no sound of others talking, not even a dog to talk to. Just me, alone with the silence. I found a trail down a dirt road (many others found it too), put my bike together, and wore myself out on the best ride of my life thus far. The only thing to do was to ride hard and listen to the quiet solitude, both of which were scary and exhilarating.

Lately that is the real soul food. There is nothing to eat or avoid eating that helps my health very much right now. There is no recipe I have to share with you, no elimination experiment, and no favorite supplement or company. I don’t even have solutions for how to get un-stuck in life or make great and powerful changes in order to love your life more and feel sublimely fulfilled. But…whatever. What I can tell you is that you are perfectly, imperfectly human, and that somehow counts for a very lot. To listen to the still, small voice that resides inside your soul– and to find a place on this earth where you can facilitate that listening– might be food enough for today.