I moved. Did you hear? I’ve been whining about it on any platform I had access to.

For as long as I can remember, moving has been a source of irrational stress and anxiety for me. I know, it’s on the list of the top 10 traumas, but I always thought it couldn’t quite compare to death, divorce or that other awful stuff.

It’s never been clear why moving feels this way to me, but the sensation is undeniable. Maybe it brings me face to face with the shame of living with so much ‘stuff’. Maybe it unsettles my home-loving Cancer personality. Maybe it’s resurfacing some childhood trauma that i’ve buried deep. Who knows??!!!!

Yet again and again, I am surprised by the ferocity of my reaction. Especially considering that most often, moving has been completely voluntary.

Somewhere around day 2 or 3 of my most recent heavy lifting, I had a crystal clear thought – I would rather birth an oversize baby than haul another box. (and I know EXACTLY what it feels like to birth a large baby!)

My body is bruised and battered. My back and shoulders may not ever recover from all the things I should not have lifted but did anyway. I am living in a degree of visual chaos that could certainly bring one to mental illness. I can hardly sleep because I just want to get it all done – the moving out and the moving in.

My meditation practice has become late night jaunts (in my pajamas) to the middle of the street to watch fireflies. I drop into downward dog whenever my spine or my mind needs stretching, but that’s about as far as it goes. Breathing through my ever mounting anxiety helps me to still be a reasonable facsimile of mother, teacher, human being.

My email is now backed up to a point that will have me apologizing for weeks. I hardly get to my writing, making the excuse about the computer being all packed up, and the internet not yet working, but the reality is that I have nothing to say that is joyful or uplifting. It’s all just getting-through-it kind of thoughts, and, frankly, who wants to hear that?

And yet…

After all the complaining and crying, moaning and groaning, panic and fret, I have to ask ‘what is here for me?’. (Remember, my belief that EVERYTHING is a blessing?)

When it’s all done, I know I will be improved by the experience – stronger, lighter, in a better place. Much of the stuff will find its way out of my life.

This move (and movement) helps me maintain my resilience and adaptability, which become increasingly important in my advancing years. I prove to myself that I am able to feel the fear of change, and DO IT ANYWAY.

Each box packed, lifted, unpacked, sorted and placed is a symbol of my need to make order of the chaos, and I see that. This striving to control (or actually, just feel IN CONTROL OF) the world around me – I see that. I keep moving in a direction of greater and greater me-ness, even when those steps appear, upon first glance, to be side-steps, missteps, and completely-in-the-wrong-direction steps.

I keep moving. And this, ultimately, forms a whole life.

Are you facing anything that feels daunting? That stirs up all your better-laid-to-rest fears? What would an inquiry into the gift of the moment reveal for you? And where does your soul need a good move?