I hate the fairy tale Sleeping Beauty. Here’s Why. I don’t relate to the Princess, Sir Charming, The Royal Parents or even the Vengeful Witch. I identify with all the servants, cooks, and gardeners, who wake up to 100 years of dust, grime, overgrown flowerbeds, sour laundry, and scum covered windows. And what of the lovers and the royal family? They wake up well rested after their 100-year slumber and what is their first order of business? They’re off planning a wedding. A Royal wedding, no less! Adding to an already infinite list of crap that needs to be done, but not by them mind you, after the neglect of a medieval castle for 100 years. I guess they don’t they think that everyone else already has enough to do without tending to their spoiled behinds. If it were me, I’d look little miss can’t keep her eyes open and say “You know what, Princess? If you want a party, you’d better grab a broom!”
This moment may feel familiar. You open your eyes after what you assumed was a 10-minute nap and find 100 years of muck you need to deal with. And there only ever seems to be one broom. Things may have been chugging along fine, the way that they always have. Wake, eat, commute, work, kids, gym, clean, laundry, holidays, dirty dishes, sleep, and repeat. Days, weeks, months, and years. Going, going, going. All going along just fine in fact, right? Maybe not fine exactly, but the same. With you checking tasks off the never-ending infinite list of stuff that keeps the wheels of life on and turning. Then one day, in the midst of all the sameness, something in all the myriad of everyday things just seems off. It’s as if everything that is exactly the same and yet looks completely new. “This if what it can feel like at the moment you find yourself realizing that your life isn’t working for you anymore. All at once it seems, you wake up. It feels utterly exhilarating. But then…
What do I do now ? That’s a question that’s bit tricker to answer. You have to answer another question first. Has something in your life has changed? Are your job duties different? Maybe your coworkers are new? Is your house kid free for the first time in 20 years? Did your youngest child just board the bus for kindergarten? How has your life changed? Have you changed? Think about that for a moment. Has your life changed, or have you changed? Answering that question is what next. And it will take some time to consider. And it should.
Maybe like Sleeping Beauty’s castle, your life has been in stasis for a time, and perhaps for some time, so have you. But not any longer. Maybe like waking up from a long sleep you’ve awaken to a wholly new challenge, yourself. Now you have to figure out what you do now? Hopefully unlike the royal staff of the aforementioned castle, you’re not faced with a true 100 years of cobwebs and all their spiders to clear away in order to see what lies underneath, for pity’s sake. The poor servants of Sleeping Beauty’s castle were cleaning up a mess in place that they didn’t even own. At least, when you begin to wipe the sleep from your eyes; it will be to clear away the cobwebs of your own castle, so to speak. But what to do with all this newfound clarity? Surely easy answers will come rushing in, right.
Well…True-2-True. You are probably more likely to identify the parts of your life that aren’t working first. I most often describe the sensation as similar to that of wearing an article of clothing that is too small. It chafes. So, if you are in this first stage of awakening, as counterintuitive as it might seem, this is your what next. So, much like Sleeping Beauty’s long-suffering staff, start with good clearing out of long linger cobwebs and dust. Like it, love it or lump it, giving the inside of your cranium a good spring cleaning is step number one. After all, once the castle is clean, then its truly time to party. Like so many of life’s transitions this is a multi-step and evolutionary process. So this is the first step of many. And that’s No Smoke. But it is the answer to “I woke up, NOW WHAT?
This is the Wyld SoothSayer reminding you to Be Human, Love Your Essentia & Live Laterally