The most important commitment

This week hit different.

Without much announcement, I stepped away from streaming. I thought I was ready to commit to the 3 day schedule, but through the intense emotional week, I felt something deep within calling me home to myself.

My emotional and spiritual body was clearly disturbed, as if I was tossed in a washing machine — tumbled, wrung out, and damp with sadness. I wasn't aware of how desperately I needed to release — to cry, to chant, and to investigate my inner temple through deep stillness.

It's odd to consider where I started this week compared to where I ended.

I was heart-broken, accessing old memories of abuse and how that trauma followed me, stalked me, and sank its talons into me. How it shaped me to who I am today, in both functional and dysfunctional ways, and how I needed to look at it — really look at it, instead of wishing it away.

So instead of forcing myself to show up externally, I listened to the call within.

While I wish to honor my streaming commitments, I must remember the most important commitment I have: the one to myself.

By returning to my daily meditation practices, sound healing rituals, Kundalini yoga kriyas, communing with hapé in my personal ceremonies, this week ends with me remembering not only my suffering, but also my power. The sharpness of my intuition, my instinctive ability to cut through the noise, the tuning of my sensitive antennae to the spiritual and energetic waves and vibrations.

I remember I am not alone. Not alone in my suffering and not alone in my joy. Through breath, I am connected to all living beings. Each and every alive person is breathing right now. You are too. In that light, you and I are one — breathing, merging, and hopeful.

When it becomes overwhelming — wait.

I implore you, please stay.

With patience and forgiveness, with love and compassion, with soft awareness and acceptance, the dangerous edges of pain will soften.

Soon, the spikes of suffering will dull.

If you do not have self-regulation practices, I invite you to explore what can aid you in the softening.

For me, this softening has looked like:

Daily blogging — Day 86 of showing up to the blank page. I keep showing up, I keep writing. It is mainly a conversation with myself, but it has become essential to weed out the performative tendencies. These words, along with my private journals, are my way of processing and making sense of the swirling emotions. Looking back at each entry reminds me of the temporal nature of it all. Each post is a testimony of life.

Daily doodling — when words wouldn't do, I gave my hands an outlet to express. Sometimes my heart was too heavy to formulate sentences, so I leaned into capturing the abstractness of it all through art. Amorphous shapes, flowing lines, colors that matched the mood. It is teaching me to remove the desire to fit an aesthetic, to value pure expression first and foremost.

Daily meditation — returning to the practice I abandoned when I got "too busy" with the chaos and stress of life. Funny how we drop the very things that could help us when we need it most. I relearn the lesson that I am someone who meditates. It reminds me: I am that I am. Sat nam.

Stepping away from this week's streams clarified that I want to show up deeply rooted, grounded, intentional and purposeful.

Through all of this, I learned something essential: I had no choice but to wait.

To stay with my sadness and to wait for it to gently nudge me when it was ready to move.

As much as we desire things instantly — gratification, transformation, and results — patience is the ingredient that allows all of these to bloom.

If any of this resonates with you, please know that you're not alone in your suffering or your healing. We're all breathing together, softening together, remembering together.

So take your time, be gentle, come home to yourself. Everything will bloom in due time.

Thanks for being here,

Nadine of the New Moon ♥