Stress Free:
How Good Are You Willing To Have It?

by Anita Allen, BScPT, CODE Model Coach™

Here I sit in the wee hours, having risen with the moon and the sight of a blank screen in Word daunting at this hour. The tumbling of my thoughts moves through my body causing my legs to twitch as they tell me they cannot remain still any longer. I hobble across the darkened bedroom clutching my computer and stifle my ironic laugh at the whole notion of being hobbled and moving furtively when my muse comes calling at this hour. My muse is no shrinking violet, and tonight she reveals herself in the metaphor of Sekhmet, the Egyptian goddess whose name means, "She Who is Powerful".

I wonder why it is that she beckons ... no demands... my attention as the household sleeps. The soft, dark under belly of the day is where she prefers to stalk the thoughts that reveal themselves as circling snippets. These half formed creatures will only reveal themselves and create a web of connection once captured and placed on the page. The urgency moves in me as they flit through my awareness. I don't want them to pass me by. In the light of day they look different and I tend to dismiss them. At night they drag me from my bed. They seduce, they beckon and they demand.

I watch my husband sleep peacefully. He wakes only to see that I am okay and rolls over with a sigh of understanding when I say, "I have to write for a while". My late night roaming is the norm these days and he buffers me in the early morning as he pours Cheerios and dog kibble into respective bowls and lets the smell of brewing coffee coax me from the bed. This is a much gentler entry into the waking world than the pounce of an exuberant and impossibly energetic preschooler that incites the dog into a frenzy of barking - a natural doggy response as he is startled awake from his cozy nook in the centre of our bed. There are mornings when I bark too!

At this late hour, I am circling cautiously around a glimpse of the Egyptian goddess, Sekhmet, her mythical bloodlust; her dual nature as destroyer and healer/creator. She is a full representation of feminine energy, not as we may have been taught about feminine energy but as an expression of the dichotomy of the feminine. She is at once soft, receptive and nurturing in addition to destructive, fiery, and in motion. As a metaphor for wholeness, she demonstrates that we are large enough to contain all the aspects of this energy, irrespective of our gender. Unfortunately, whether male or female, we often seek to repress, control and lock down those aspects of ourselves that do not fit our current cultural ideal.

I wonder about Sekhmet’s rising in me and the connection to the men in my household. I am remembering how I could feel the fire in my belly that seared up to my throat from a few days after conceiving my son until moments before he was born. I am remembering how he was plagued with health problems as an infant until I discovered the need to adjust my diet and thereby change the content of the breast milk he was nursed with. Born and nurtured by the fire that flowed in me and the consequences for him as a young child were nearly life threatening, until I found a way to mediate my diet and found an outlet for my own creative fire. The result, a precocious, thriving child filled with creativity and fire that is unique to him.

I notice that my husband’s creativity flows white-hot these days. I envy his single-minded passion and commitment to the creation that will be the underpinning of his business. I flit from home to office with no sense of full connection in either. I carry the swirl of thoughts with me like my own weather system. I am happy on the move with something new emerging on the horizon that draws me forward moment to moment. My devotion to creation is practiced as flow and motion. His devotion is expressed like that of a Tibetan monk, painstakingly creating a sand mosaic on the temple floor. The results of his attention grow steadily and mine manifest like Tasmanian devils that whirl in and whirl out...thank god, since my attention to detail is already strained at this velocity! So far my whirling world and his earthly one have not yet intersected. I wonder what we will discover when my winds disrupt his sand? So far, we mingle and dance on the edges, each of us moving apart to re-engage our own separate creations feeling both connected and distinct. In fact, in our wholeness, we are all connected.

As Sekhmet rises with the moon, my restlessness, my fire, finds expression through the purring of fingers on a keyboard. Tonight there is softness in the dark and the edges feel far away as I revel in the crucible of my sleeping family.

And yet, what is also beginning to stretch and unfurl is the lioness’ roar that urges us all to look straight into the face of our humanity. That demands we acknowledge that street children are hunted in sewers of Bogotá for sport, the growth of child sex slavery worldwide, the starvation of entire nations while others have excess, the genocide, the AIDs epidemic and the stinking rot of a belief system that is leading us blindly forward into obliteration. So many unspeakable things lie just below the surface of our awareness. Many people I have talked to choose to pull away from the news and the negativity as part of their own evolution of consciousness. Others parrot the latest news around water coolers as if it were a recent "reality" TV episode. Please do not turn away any longer. Pay attention.

When we can look at what we have created and claim it, see ourselves in it - when we can hold it close enough even with its putrefying stench - we will see that we are all connected. We can discover that the way forward is not in turning our faces away and side stepping the mess even while we are in the act of perpetrating another assault on humanity and the planet. The way forward is in naming it, claiming it and then taking action.

The dark, unclaimed places in each of us are what permit this to continue. The depth of our terror holds us in place, back to the wall, eyes shut tightly as we try desperately to block out the sights, the sounds, the smells. Our fire turns inward. The depth of our rage is another thing that terrifies us so we continue in our self-deception. We feel or become impotent. We seethe with restraint. We pull back into ourselves and disconnect. I can understand the why legend of Sekhmet's rage unleashed has been represented as bloodlust - for those who quake with terror at the thought of their own rage in flow, the cleansing and purifying combination of fire and water would be a terrifying sight indeed. She is a metaphor for the cycle of creation and destruction. As "She Who Is Powerful", Sekhmet offers us a glimpse of the potency of a whole and unrestrained feminine energy.

Embrace it and know that individually and collectively we are large enough to hold it all. We are made greater by the sum of our parts. Move past judgment, step beyond moralizing and reach for the place within you that can bear witness. Take action! Engage the fire that moves in you rather than ignoring it. Create a new future with passion and meaning. Renew your sense of connection. The reason I believe that human potential is exponential is the fact they we are all connected. Exponential Potential lies within our grasp if we are willing to pay attention to our wholeness.

Original Copyright 2005 Anita Allen
Anita Allen, BScPT, CODE Model Coach™ is a Registered Physiotherapist, a WEL-Systems Catalyst, the owner of Albion Hills Physiotherapy and the founder of the WELsprings Institute in the Greater Toronto Area. An entrepreneur, writer, speaker, and creator of Exponential Potential™, Anita is passionate about educating the world about human potential.

To find out more about upcoming workshops/seminars offered by WELsprings, email info@WELsprings.com

This article is reproduced with the permission of the author, Anita Allen. This article may be reproduced provided premission has been granted by Anita Allen and it is reproduced in its entirety with appropriate acknowledgement of the author, the source and a web link to www.WELsprings.com