Roll your eyes! Or not. But I am fairly certain that all the vertigo I have been
experiencing lately is related to my third life crisis. See, I can’t quite say
it’s a mid life crisis, because I am not quite that old, but here I am having some such crisis... maybe... anyway...
I went to the Medical Doctor today. (‘Gasp,’ you emote, “The
MEDICAL doctor? Who is writing this blog and what have you done with Erin?”) I
was so worried that the series of vertigo might be, you know, cochlear tumors
or something. And I have a LOVELY Doctor that I work with, one of the most
delightful men in the mid-Wilshire area, a fashionable music lover dedicated to
helping his patients, and who does special outreach to patients suffering with
AIDS. He’s wonderful. So although I do not like taking steroids or antibiotics,
and I don’t like spending hours (or money) away from my LIFE life, I have now
had OVERWHELMING acute Vertigo twice and little mini vertigo sessions about
half a dozen times in the last few weeks. The world is spinning just a little
as I type this, but I’m handling it.
Dr. Lim checked me out, and explained that in his opinion,
it stems from my allergy to dust and dairy creating extreme congestion,
blocking my Eustachian tubes and creating pressure in my inner ears, leading to
vertigo. Allergies? All this pain for allergies?
Oh, I believe it. I am hoping the anti allergy medication,
Chinese herbs for clear lungs and clear breathing, meditation for clear
passageway, and general avoidance of dairy, gluten and sugar (hahahahaha, that
I will start tomorrow) will help me overcome vertigo.
So, if you’ve read me for a while, you may be surprised that
I am having such a complaint heavy blog, and you may be wondering why the
connection between allergies and life crises? But see, if my life as an
artist and as a mystic is connected with my authentic self, then I want to not
always be just a Pollyanna but be honest about when stuff ISN’T going well,
too…
My vertigo is a combination of vertigo, dizziness, tinnitus,
and nausea. Louise Hay says that these things are about an inability- or
refusal- to hear and listen. A refusal to see. And while at first, when I read
these things, I thought, ‘ah hell no! I am constantly working on myself!’ I
decided that a better use of this malady is as an opportunity. IS there
something I am refusing to see? Are there things I cannot or will not hear?
Hence the life crisis. I have been transitioning my “day
job” out of massage, a profession that has paid my rent most of my adult life,
and into more life coaching and psychic work. It’s scary, leaving something I
never really liked but was good at. I am now throwing myself more than ever
before into music, into acting, into writing, into coaching. And I’m not 21,
and even though I act like age doesn’t matter, I’m still scared. And yet, this
is my life. I am here to LIVE it, full out, passionately. I’m not one for being
safe. I want to explore every single avenue, and of course, that can sometimes
be my detriment. I take on too much and disperse my creative energy instead of
focusing…
Focus… ah! Vertigo… cannot focus…
Pilots sometimes experience vertigo while flying. They
sometimes develop a feeling where they cannot tell if they are flying up or
down. It often happens if the pilot takes his or her eyes off the instruments
and starts piloting by feeling.
Hold up. I’m all one for feeling, aren’t I?
Not exactly.
See, while I am definitely one for FEELING the feelings, I
also know they, like thoughts, shall pass. And so those many years ago in India
I handed my life over to the DIVINE and said I would know what to do because it
was in FRONT of me.
Well, in recent months, I have sort of- not STOPPED doing
what was in front of me, per se- but I have started adding a lot of activities
coming from my ideas of what I "think I want" front of me. I have been focusing on
mistakes I have made and how to never make them again- important information,
to be sure, but that is NOT what is in front of me!
And
by the way, YES. I follow my dreams. I follow my heart in that I am in
touch with it as a center of love from whence all artistic and healing
and FUN outpourings emerge.
But here is what has been happening. I'll just be honest.
HEART: "Sing!"
OBSERVER OF SELF IN MEDITATION: "Ma...."
GOD/ MUSE: "Here's a song!"
MUSICIAN SELF: "Write that $%^& down before it disappears!"
SINGER SELF: "Can't wait to sing this beautiful song!"
CULTURAL MIND INFECTED WITH MEMES: "You're getting a little old to record a pop tune. Who do you think you are, Taylor Swift?"
INNER OLD SCHOOL POWERFUL FEMALE ICON: "Maybe more like Carole Lombard meets Annie Lennox, but okay."
INNER DIVA: "I think I am ERIN, biatches."
OVERWHELMED NERVOUS SYSTEM: "Oh my God. Vertigo."
..... Ieeeeeeeeeee!
In the book of Psalms, God says, “Be still, and know that I am God.”
When I experience vertigo, there is nothing to do but sit,
and be still and breathe. And through that breathe comes the relief, sometimes
awful, that I am supported by the divine. And then in those moments of quiet
listening, I hear the small, still voice of inspiration. And then I as myself:
What is in front of me?
See,
the cycle could continue. But I think maybe this time I will cut right
to the beauty of the song without all this need to define and justify
myself. I am a songwriter and an author and a performer. I channel love
in an artistic equation of storytelling in various mediums. That love
heals, or inspires, or or creates laughter.
And
life crisis stuff- well- when one is an artist living and working in a
culture that values art as a commercial commodity, but fewer artists are
able to "make a living," it is easy to get caught up in that swell of
thinking rather than "take arms against a sea of troubles and by
opposing end them." Only in this case, the arms would be my artistic
endeavors and the sea of troubles would be the negative thinking of the
culture surrounding art, value, age, and etc., and to oppose them and
end them would be to continue my own work because I LOVE it.
Heck, what else am I supposed to do, anyway?
As the Course In Miracles says: “God, what would you have me
do? Where would you have me go? What would you have me say and to whom?”
This is the same promise I made to the Divine Mother that
day 7 years ago in India. I would no longer try to run my own life. I would do
what the Divine wanted me to do and I would know what it was because it would
be IN FRONT of me.
And so, again and again, like the sea on the tide, I turn it
over to divine.
So what is in front of me?
Certainly not all this worry about “my life,” and whether I
made or am making the right decisions. Bah. I have experienced better, love
better, know better, practice better. My life is already full of love and for
that I am grateful…. And it is full of love because I choose that, every day,
despite the fears, despite the messages and memes of a heartsick culture. It’s
a practice and a joy.
Well, we’re about to find out. And with gusto.
And on that, I shall fix my eyes. Like pilots fixing their
eyes on the instruments so that they may fly the plane to its destination, I
won’t be fixed on the destination, but I won’t be fixed on distractions,
either. I shall be fixed upon the joy of the task in front of me. There is no
destination. I am here. There ARE distractions, but they are NOT the bringers
of the joy that is here. And so, with love, I just stop thinking about the
mistakes I made in my life and get back to the beautiful work in front of me.
The work of art, the work of healing, the work of loving, the work of joy.
Love,
Erin
