When Life asks for Less

Recovery, capacity, and trusting the path as it unfolds.

Today is Tuesday, February 17th.

A regular, old Tuesday in the month of February…or something more?

Today is a new moon in Aquarius. And a solar eclipse. And a shift in the Chinese Zodiac, from Year of the Snake to Year of the Fire Horse! The latter transition alone, is all over social media, interpretations speeding in both directions, messages for the individual and the collective.

I’ve had this date marked on my calendar since I met with one of my favourite astrologers for a reading a few weeks ago. I woke up that day, confused and disoriented. The one clear thought I did have was that I needed guidance and reassurance. Since that session, the universe seems to be laying tracks for me. It feels like walking a path through a thick forest with nothing to see in front of me except more forest, and the path disappearing under my feet.

This isn’t a new experience for me. I’ve been carried along before…just not as consciously. In recovery, I’ve learned to pay attention. This year, not even two months in, my lessons are shouting at me. I'm revisiting priorities and recentering them. I'm recognizing and admitting that my capacity has been reached and life is asking for less.

This is not an easy task for an ever-steady and loyal Taurus, for a people-pleasing adoptee, for a “do-er”. Letting go can be difficult for me. I hang on, even when the people, places and things are desperately trying to shake me off.

I sat in the directors office of my son’s day program a few weeks back, feeling quite lost. My son’s father has left our parenting arrangement and as mother to a high-needs 20 year old, this is a big deal. I do not know for how long and I can't even begin to hold that hot potato, anyway. The director, is a thirty-something-year-old man at the helm of a much-needed organization supporting young adults with disabilities and their families. He is kind, and knowledgeable. He is telling me I need to get serious about my son’s future.

Diagnosed with autism, epilepsy, anxiety and an intellectual disability, my son won't likely be able to live completely independently, ever. He’ll need support to just live day-to-day. To live a version of life that’s been whittled down by diagnosis, crisis, and an underfunded and undervalued system of support. Sports, high school friends and first loves; university, jobs, marriage and kids; it’s been a gradual falling away over the years. All I'm asking for now is a simple life for my son, and a place and people he can feel like he belongs to.

But where? With who?

That is the million-dollar question. I am a member of a distinct parenting club. The one where we do all the things that parents do (and more) with no end in sight, And we do it all carrying the weight of what happens to our kid in 10, 20, or 30 years.

What happens when I'm gone?

In that moment, sitting in that office, I realized that all the work I have done to secure services and supports for Greyson, has been piece-meal work. Helpful, yes but not enough. I've only been plugging holes, responding to present circumstances.

I know that I have to shift into long-term thinking and action. I know that I have to create more space. I have to let go of some priorities, to "clear the decks" so I can focus on what he needs.

I suppose my recovery has been preparing me for this. 11 years of sobriety, of discovery and recovery, has trained me to accept life, to change my thinking, behaviours and the situations that are not fitting any longer.

I trust what I know. And, of course, it’s constant practice.

This Fire Horse energy that we are moving into this week, well, there’s a lot to unpack there. What’s standing out to me is the call for decisive and consistent action. Which in turn, means it’s more important than ever to know your limits, to take care of your nervous system, to discern and to rest. The New Moon in Aquarius and Solar Eclipse is said to be bringing change that can feel both liberating and destabilizing. Hello!

Now, I’m not new to the work of listening and leaping at the request of my inner wise woman, and you probably aren’t either. This week’s astrology is asking for more of that. Trusting that the tracks being laid out before us, will take us where we want to go, whether that place is already known or completely unfamiliar. Recovery becomes discovery, exciting and scary.

If you agree, let’s make self-care and nervous-system regulation a priority. Goddess knows, along with any personal challenges, our external, larger world is along for the wild ride. As I write this, I’m picturing a merry-go-round and a childhood memory plays out. I am spinning with the spinning circle, trying to grip the smooth, metal bars until my fingers slide off. I’m flung into the dust, dizzy and breathless.

Sometimes, you just have to let go and hope you land somewhere soft.

Wherever you are, whatever you are navigating this month, I’d like to remind you, by virtue of simply being on this recovery and healing journey, you ARE winning at life. There is nothing else that is more important than you becoming a loving and empowered person, for yourself, for your loved ones and for your community. And you are doing that. So, hold on. Let go. Or, just “be”.

A final thought. Last week, I pulled out a journal from 1997. I was living in Vancouver, British Columbia, trying to make it as a musician. I spent my days and nights, writing, singing, partying and living a big, sloppy, chaotic life.

I was touched by the budding wisdom written down on one of the pages...seeds of my wise woman, pushing through the dirt.

I’m back. Can’t sleep, too hot, mind going, tears falling.

I’m okay, everything is working out as planned.

I am just following the path that has been laid out before me.

Reading stuff I have written is good. Thank you for writing your feelings down.

You are a part of something – you have a role, a space, a part – to fill, to play.

No one else can do it. Just you. This is all for you.

And you are okay.

Love,

Payton