Burning Bright: Crossing the Threshold
I’ve been making people uncomfortable my entire life. When I was younger, I’d go out of my way to make people uncomfortable. I had fun watching them react or squirm. Now that I’m older, I’m no longer looking for a reaction. Superficial things don’t cut it for me. I prefer depth, the underbelly, so I ask questions, lean in, learn, grow, and change as a result.
If someone or something makes me uncomfortable, I get curious. Discomfort is a growth edge, and I ask, “What are you showing me? What are you trying to teach me that I’m ready to discover about myself and the world around me?”
Leaning into discomfort with curiosity, I cross a threshold, diving into a liminal, uncharted space. Here, it may feel a little crunchy, scary, maybe even exciting. Anything is possible in this space. I’ve lived here, in this in-between state, most of my life.
I think about my mortality daily. Every morning, I wake up grateful to be alive. I begin again. This life of mine is meant to be lived. Every moment, a choice. Asking myself, “How do I choose to live in each moment?” changed everything for me. That question didn’t come easy.
In August 2019, I survived a near-death experience. A pivot point that opened the door to a deeper level of self-reflection. I discovered I wasn’t living in my truth. I had abandoned myself for most of my life, putting other people’s wants and needs before my own.
I believed I walked through the world without performing or wearing a mask. As I zoomed out, shifting my perspective, I realized this wasn’t true. I was always switching out my masks, performing, trying to survive in a world I didn’t feel had enough space for me. I was a fractured mirror. So many pieces made up all of me. I couldn’t live like that anymore. I was shrinking in a world I was meant to shine in, dying on the inside.
The expectations I was putting on myself, and taking on from others, were too much. My shoulders were heavy, my heart and chest were tight, closed off. I wasn’t living.
My inner fire, the spark that I stopped tending, was a tiny flame I held gently. I was afraid to breathe, for fear that it might go out.
Something needed to change. I came back home, tended my inner fire, and showed up for myself. I created boundaries that aligned with my values. I started saying no. I made space for myself. I trusted my intuition, paused, took up space, honored my body, and listened.
I took a leap into the unknown. I walked in the dark, looking for parts of myself that had been locked away, rediscovering my muchness that I had buried long ago. I’m still walking this path, choosing curiosity over comfort, continuously taking up space that I am meant to inhabit.
XO,
Naomi
My Muchness Dear Mind, please forgive me. A tiny seed planted in my brain took root and blossomed. A garden started to grow, each flower has a name: Too Loud Too Honest Too Assertive Too Direct Too Happy Too Intense Too Deep Too Passionate Too Much Love A mindfuck, a garden of Too Much. As a child my muchness wasn’t ever frowned upon, but one day, what started as a whisper, tone it down, turned into a scream. My muchness was making people uncomfortable. I was too much. My spirit, crushed, my wholeness, shattered, each piece put into a jar, sealed, buried, no longer free. My muchness, a spark, an inner fire I stopped tending, started to fade. The wind can be too much, but is it? An invisible force of nature we can feel, a soft gentle breeze kissing our skin, to a bursting howl so powerful it’s suffocating. Trees need it to survive, thrive, build up their strength, resilience, flex, bend, while standing tall. The wind doesn’t make itself small or less than. It exists, it doesn't hide. It shows up, in all its glory. I look to my star, everything that makes it whole, remember who I am. Stardust, I contain multitudes, the magic that lives inside me, my inner flame, my muchness a gift, so precious, not meant to be buried or hidden. Honoring myself, my too much is just right, it ebbs, flows, my excitement for things, how I dive right in go deep and love. I am a force of nature, a light breeze, a hurricane, and everything in between.