I decided to invest in myself and began a career coaching program, which has felt like next level trauma therapy. I’ve had to stare my mental and physical burnout in the face. I’m getting close to completing it and even closer to having my consulting business stood up. I have familiar fears peaking. I remind myself how far I’ve come and collect new facts which help to destroy old patterns while creating new ones to support my new core beliefs.

Oh yippee (I’m being positive instead of saying yuck)…a new pattern is emerging. I clearly see that any time I’ve been “stuck”, it’s usually because truth is hitting up against an old belief. My mind is in agreement with the new fact and can’t figure out where to “file it away”, so it asks the body to engage which can no longer find the old survival skills. Those skills no longer live because of my work to get rid of that which no longer serves me. So the body jumps into the default survival skills where it numbs, disengages, and/or disassociate. I’m stuck not knowing what to do!! This is the place where the old is leaving and new is arriving.

Transformation’s Shoreline

It’s kinda like the ocean’s waters at the shoreline. It’s my favorite place to stand. Feet on the sand as the water rushes in and just covers your feet. The perfect place for nature’s grounding between the earth and water where regeneration stabilizes your nervous system, lowers cortisol, and accelerates physical recovery. It’s one of the most powerful physical and energetic environments on Earth. But there is something more happening here in this place.

It’s the area where the last wave is being pulled back into the ocean while the new wave is rushing to the shore known as the swash zone. It’s an area of natural turmoil of the ebb and flow, the new against the old. There are opposing forces at work. The retreating water pulls debris and sand out to sea by gravity, while the incoming wave drives new water and energy landward through kinetic force. There is constant regeneration in this area. It is never the same twice. It’s a literal place of destruction from the old wave and creation by the new. Sounds familiar?

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” – 2 Corinthians 5:17 (NIV)

If you are standing there, your feet get buried because the rushing water forces its way between the grains of sand creating a temporary liquid state. Within minutes, you will be buried up to your calves. The packed, wet sand creates a heavy vacuum seal, making it surprisingly difficult to pull your feet straight up without losing your balance. You HAVE to move else your feet will be SO buried when the tide moves in you will get knocked down by the actual waves. This is the place of stuck in life. This is the real liquifaction of our past hurts, dysfunction from family roles and expectations, and perceived failures that have reminded us we are never enough, while at the same time, butting up against new beliefs. God doesn’t leave us there, especially if we are believing Him and walking away from the old beliefs.

“Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming” – Ephesians 4:14 (NIV)

“He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.” – Psalm 40:1-3

So we pull and tug at our buried feet from the suction that wants to keep us down. Pop! Our feet are free. Something happens inside, we come to life. There’s a little jump a want to run. I feel the blood pump through my body and just smile at the waves before me. Regeneration.

“But forget all that—it is nothing compared to what I am going to do. For I am about to do something new. See, I have already begun! Do you not see it? I will make a pathway through the wilderness”. – Isaiah 43:18-19 (NLT)

Child-like Wonder

I instantly feel like a little kid at the beach for the first time. I remember standing in awe at the vast ocean, sand for as far as my eyes can see, the wind blowing my hair. The water calls to me and I run free of any care. The voices of my parents or my siblings are drowned out from the roar of the waves crashing. It’s just me in a perfect state of joy and child-like wonder. I stand at the water’s edge, overwhelmed in the best way, that there is something bigger than me and that fills me with peace. Ahhh… Freedom.

“But those who trust in the Lord will renew their strength; they will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not become weary, they will walk and not faint”. – Isaiah 40:31 (NIV)

“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” – Galatians 5:1 (NIV)