Define awe and wonder for yourself and then go find it | #60
Learning to define my awe and wonder and where it led me on the summer solstice
What feels awesome and wonderful to me could be worlds apart from what feels awesome and wonderful to you. And for many years, I always thought that whenever what felt awesome and wonderful to me was of no interest to the social groups I was in or to my family, that it was a flaw with me.
A part that denied the things I felt excited by grew to become quite a strong voice in my head. When I got into handstands, it asked why I was wasting time on something so useless. When I saw myself get excited by ecstatic dance, it asked what was wrong with me that I felt drawn to this quirky, and some may even consider odd, practice.
Rather than embracing that I wanted to do things that may be different to my family and shining in the uniqueness of my interests and quirks, I put an arms length distance between the interest and myself. Concluding that something had to go wrong in me, some deep seated trauma to be drawn towards things like kirtan (or the mode of ecstatic chanting) on most Friday nights.
How odd of me to be drawn to a basement yoga studio on Friday nights of all nights to chant three mantras over the course of ninety or so minutes. What is it about me that feels this need? What went wrong?
Those mental questions, I’d ask of myself. Before I became sure of my quirks and interests and ways of living, I even hid it from friends. Sharing the more commonly accepted practice that I was going for meditation on Friday. And receiving responses from friends that shown admiration for my practice, rather than questionable expressions or rejection in their looks. Chanting??
The same thing happened with ecstatic dance, rather than embracing that I love it, that it is a true part of my being. I spent a significant amount of time loving it but hating myself for loving it and psychoanalysing the community that I regularly danced with at the Hackney Baths.
Who are all these weirdos? Why are we all screaming and crying and dancing without rules or boundaries or for any purpose in this big hall? What problem within ourselves are we trying to fix?
I remember going through a phase of feeling we are all troubled people, we all had issues that the normal people didn’t have. And that we needed this space to empty our cup on a weekly basis.
I’d been aware of this way of talking to myself, or in the language of Internal Families Systems (a therapeutic/coaching modality) of this part existing very strongly in me. And it had been a long time coming of that part quieting down and allowing me to be proud of how I am.
Earlier this year, I took a leap of intuitive faith and went on a weekend retreat with Krishna Das (KD), a kirtan rockstar as they say. Alex and I had already planned a trip to New York and he happened to be running a weekend retreat just an hour drive from the airport we were landing in. All fell into place and we went. It was a costly decision financially but it was so worth it. From the moment KD entered the hall where we sat waiting to chant with him, I knew in the depths of my being that I had learnt to vote for me and for what I find awesome and wonderful. I felt fucking proud of myself. And then I cried tears of relief that I was finally able to trust myself.
That was a milestone in trusting my intuition and since then I have done things that are led by my definition of awesome and wonderful. This includes leaving my full-time London based job for the unknown world of nomad travelling, following my interests in bodywork and writing and letting things unfold. It also includes going to Burning Man again and this time arranging to build and bring an art installation onto playa.
I’d been wanting to make it to the solstice celebration at Stonehenge for a couple of years. Yesterday we went. It was a big effort to rent a car, drive out there and spend the night there then drive back without much sleep. But wow, it was so damn worth it.
Maybe waiting for the sun to set and then to rise again with 15,000 other revellers by these mystical stones are not everyone’s definition of awesome and wonderful but I know it is mine. And I went to find it.
Happy summer solstice!
Caryn