I Am the Stop Sign

This is Day 2 of the 108 day cycle, and the first day had already shown me that my 'intention' needed to have some parameters around it in order for me to feel more grounded. So in responding to the larger group this morning, I clarified some of the things I would be doing to help keep me in alignment with my intention to explore food as medicine. So I will be doing yoga for 30 minutes each day, running 2x/week, meditating/sitting with my altar for at least 10 minutes 2x/day, drinking 80 oz water/day, and taking wheat and dairy out of my diet again. All of those things help me to be more in alignment with the food that I eat, and seem to encourage me to reach for foods closer to the earth.

This morning I woke up with a particularly vivid dream, that struck me at my core for many areas of my life. In the dream I was with a group of people and I was sharing my process around what I had learned from an emotionally abusive relationship that I had been in. These were people that were also part of my graduate program and part of my work life. In the midst of what I was sharing, someone pointed to a stop sign in the room and said 'you are the stop sign'. And then another person and another person and another person all started to nod their head in agreement and murmured about how the conflict intervention residency I was about to attend was going to enhance that.

When I woke up from the dream, beyond the fact that I was panicked because I had fallen back to sleep after my alarm had sounded, I was puzzled by the dream. So as I prepared for my day, did yoga and meditation, made breakfast, and moved myself out the door, I pondered on what that meant to me.

I was the stop sign.

What has come up for me, is this sense that somehow in making the choices that I have made (and continue to make), I am breaking dysfunctional cycles in my life, and also dysfunctional cycles and patterns from generations within my family. 

At first, that thought/awareness, felt silly . . . but when I sit quietly with it, I realize there is truth there. We are born into dynamics and patterns within our family. Those things are passed onto us energetically, emotionally, physically, and mentally . . . and each generation has an option to change, shift, shape, and mold that into something that is filled with light and love. And often in my journey of healing, growth, and self-reflection I have been aware that I was making conscious choices, step by step to shift these dynamics and patterns.

So here, in this 108 day cycle . . . I am making that conscious shift again. While I didn't at first attribute that to part of my process or intention, I recognize that is what we are all doing, really.

We are all stop signs.

This journey - this 108 days - is an opportunity to practice standing at the stop sign each and every day. To choose deliberately and consciously which direction we head. To shift lifetimes of patterns that need to be untied and woven together again. And it is in these small, mindful shifts, that we begin to change the world around us. Because we are changing the world within us. Micro to macro. Inner to outer. Me to you. You to us.