The OS behind the actions: How intentions can corrupt a growth path

I'd been finding a good balance here in Pensacola, between being productive at work, getting to the coffee shop and doing some writing, going to the gym, meditation and spiritual practice, gym, walks and other things.  It's made my days very full and fulfilling, I've moved into a place of connecting with my community instead of just escaping into fishing and withdrawal.

I'm moving from a place of loneliness and isolation into a place of integration and genuinely listening to and following my heart.  I've upgraded my wardrobe, my lifting, my writing and my overall life.

All of which brought me to yesterday morning.  I woke up early and decided to "just go" and fish Johnson Beach.  First problem, the road was closed, because I was too early.  Second, it was dark and setting up is a pain at that time.  Third, it was cold in the morning, in the fifties, and I never like fishing in that kind of weather.

And finally, I was tired.  My system was deeply fatigued.  Yes, the new experiences I've added have made my life here more rich, but I hadn't left myself any space to, well, space things out and allow my experiences to integrate.  It was not manic, but in that vein.

And eventually "following my heart" becomes "following the schedule." Natural increases in strength become "max out because that's what I do."  And eventually the body and system have enough.

The body has a way of telling me it's tired or strained.  One is the cortisol spike at 3am.  This isn't a "go with it" event, this is a "you're off track" event.  My system is stuck, either in inaction or unconscious action/reaction.

So here I was, on this beach, in the cold, finding myself not really appreciating the beauty around me, but very much in my head and trying to ignore my body, which was telling me it was tired, cold and sore.  But hey, the glasses and hat are a nice new look.

I managed to catch a couple decent fish, it wasn't a bust, but I just wasn't feeling the experience.  I brought Orion stones and the meditations felt forced.  Everything felt out of place. 

As I was bringing in my lines to go home, one of my poles started bending - a strong but gentle bend.  I thought I had seaweed, but it was sort of moving, very gently.  I kept nudging it in and noticed a sea turtle had become caught in my line.

I kept nudging this gentle creature to the shoreline, worried my line would break or the creature would get scared and struggle and I'd have a stalemate on my hands. Instead, as the turtle got to the shorebreak, she turned herself and extracted herself from the line, leaving my rig and line (and her) intact, and off she went.  

It was a beautiful experience.  Yes, I felt anxiety and concern for the turtle.  I also felt uncertainty.  But I followed my higher instinct and the turtle's movement until we were able to disentangle.  

This was a sign - both that I'd allowed my higher self to get snared by an abusive pattern (which led to my fatigue and presence on the beach in the first place), and how to disentangle.

The turtle is aligned with my higher self - slow, gentle, it rides the currents, it doesn't fight them.  It doesn't overreact with fear, it trusts the process and conserves its energy to act when appropriate.  It carries an innate wisdom that lives in the moment without being owned by it.

And it was that slow, gentle, wise self that got me out of that situation, that saw me off the beach, that came home and went back to sleep until I had my baseline energy back.  This is the pace of my higher self, it is slow, it rides the current.  It is gentle and wise and not governed by fear or reactive patterns.  It is the living embodiment of heart's desire.

And yet this can get snared.  Habit, emotional drain, fatigue, anxiety, these can cause the higher self to get hijacked until a good heart-centered stack becomes another to-do list for the ego and the same things that elevated me now drain me.

The heart has many desires, many new experiences it wants to enjoy.  And yet, a wise higher self knows to follow the current.  There is a time for action, a time for courage, a time for "doing," but stay in the current, move with it, glide, nudge.  The old turtle didn't get there by darting to and fro, or going as fast as it could.  

And that's the wisdom coming through from my higher self: slow down, find the flow and ride it, nudge, don't force.  And know your loyalty is to your higher self, not the individual items on your wish/to-do list.