- Cynthia Coupe
Powerful Choice
I had this experience recently that forced me to look at myself.
At who I be and who I need to be.
I had this opportunity to shine like the divine being I am, to radiate my brilliant light from the inside out while wearing an amazing fucking dress. Perhaps not surprisingly, I attracted someone into my sphere. It was a compliment. An amazing gift. I felt like Frank was shining down from above helping me see that I was, in fact, an attractive human, radiant..divine...seen.
It felt good.
Until it didn’t.
Until I became stuck in fear and scarcity.
Until I began thinking about how I dim my own light, how I’ve done that so automatically for so long, and now I’m not willing.
Enter fear
Enter scarcity.
Exit power.
Exit trust.
And here I am, knowing I’m a fucking awesome human. I finally get that, I finally see it.
I’m kind, and smart, witty and beautiful. I have an energy that’s expansive and I’m curious about life, I’m adventurous and committed to growing as a human. I bring light into the dark...I shine the way so others can follow and I have more passion than I’ve ever known.
And yet, I’m stuck living a life that isn’t the one I thought I had signed up for. It keeps me busy and I’m doing rad things, making incredible connections and meeting my challenges every day. But…Fuck. It’s hard a hell to rise every morning in this weird landscape. Some days it’s soul-crushing.
Sometimes it’s exhausting and sad all I want is to fall into the arms of my lover and take my mind off things. To get a warm embrace and a wet kiss and a smack on the butt with the knowledge that I’m enough.
But I don’t have that person, so it gets to be me. And that’s terrifying.
Apparently, I’m afraid of being alone.
I’m young, but not for long…what if I turn old and unattractive? What if I miss some of the best years of my life without someone to share them with?
I had it all. I had what I wanted. I was happy. I was loved.
I was loved
And what if I'm never loved again? What if I can't make a connection? Can't find a human to share my life with? And how can I change this fear into choice? This powerlessness into prowess?
So recently, it felt like I lost my agency because I lost my choice.
I didn’t know what I wanted…and in losing sight of what I desired, I lost my power.
My agency is my power.
My agency lies in my ability to ask, to be clear about what I want, and to make a direct request from that space.
It doesn’t even matter if I get it…
My power is not getting what I ask for, but asking for what I want.
Yes or no is relative.
That, my friends, is the seed.
The ability to be clear on an intention, a desire, and move from there.
And doesn’t this lesson just show up all over the freaking place?
Couldn’t we hold more agency and power if we were clear on what we wanted…and asked for it? Even if it were to the universe, a vision board, an empty room...intention breeds possiblity, right?
And then what if, once we were clear we allowed it to happen, rather than pushing?
I mean…we go to a restaurant and look at the menu. If we’re clear, we request: “I would like the cobb salad with dressing on the side, no bacon but an extra egg would be nice.” And maybe the restaurant is like “Sorry, ma'am, no substitutions” and then we could say “Ok, that’s fine, I’ll eat elsewhere” or: “alright, then I’ll have the BLT.” We wouldn’t push back (well, some of you might but in general, we wouldn’t) and ask to speak to the kitchen staff and get to the bottom of why “no substitutions” were a thing, right?
We wouldn’t go anywhere to eat and say “just bring me something” and then see what they had for us…that would be being a victim, right? Sometimes it could work, but often it wouldn’t. We would be irritated, angry, and unsatisfied.
We would have given up our agency, our choice, our ability to be clear on what we want and then go for it from there. And sure, sometimes compromise does happen…and that’s ok! And it’s ok to hear “no” and it’s ok to say “no,” because that’s a fucking boundary and it’s important. Or maybe it’s not a no but an “I can’t do that right now, how about tomorrow?”
So we have to keep our agency. We have to keep knowing what we want, and honing that desire and going from there and moving forward and taking everything as information. See how our body reacts, see how we feel on the inside…icky and sticky and cold and “no” or warm and lovely and spacious and “yes?” Our bodies are like a tuning fork, a divining rod…our bodies know, but we have to tune in and trust.
At a restaurant, we’re also in line with allowing…right? We’re not going to order and then get paranoid the food will never come…we know it will. We know some restaurants take longer than others, and we allow for that..there are times it might get a little messed up, but in general, we know that we order, and we allow.
Somedays this is as easy as pie (whatever that means, I think it must be eating pie because that’s easy), and other days I can’t get a grip on any of it.
As soon as Frank died, it was easy…so easy. Yes or no, it was clear what I wanted and needed and I had zero ability to push instead of pull. I had the agency to know what I needed, and I had space to allow. It was amazing, what got created so very quickly in that space. It was pure potentiality and power. It was manifestation in it's purest form. And I created a lot in this space...in these past 7 months crazy things have transformed.
And then my head got in the way because it came back to the party. It was like “you sure? Is that what you want? Wait, you don’t know what you want! You’re scared! You’re afraid!! You just had a terrible thing happen and you don’t know anything!”
And my body reacted to that...it got scared and confused too. For a moment I lost my agency, choice, and allowing. I was in scarcity, all alone and afraid, and I didn’t like it there one bit.
So I pulled out my bag of tricks and did some guided meditation. I worked on energy leaks and visualizations and loving myself, and it shifted something.
To be honest, Frank's energy showed up. In one meditation I was instructed to go to a nice, natural setting with a space to lie down, somewhere I felt safe and comfortable. Knowing I always choose the forest when this option appears, I prepped myself for that. But something different came...it was the headland bluffs with crashing ocean on one side. There was grass on the other side, so I figured I'd head there, but I didn't...instead, I went for the cliff with the intention to dive into the ocean. I jumped. The wind caught me, picked me up and hovered me just above the level of the cliff. I swirled around, completely held and supported. I was delivered back to the bluff and I knew I was safe. Held, supported...that when I had the bravery to let-it-all-go-and-see-what-happens, I was fine. The wind had my back.
I knew it was Frank because the ocean bluffs were his happy place...crashing waves were his grounding rod, his safe spot. And he brought me there, held me close, and delivered me back to safe ground.
After that my fear was replaced with knowing…I had a quieter mind. I was able to formulate what I wanted, and how to ask…and from that space, I created something from nothing.
Here's to the next steps in this life. For the bag of tricks, the fear and the resolve. Here's to agency and choice and being brave enough to make an ask, whatever that may be, no matter the outcome. In particular, here's to the allowing...to the space in the void where we wait, and trust and know the outcome will be what we need, even if it takes a while, and even if it looks a little messy on the way.
This my friend, is a powerful choice.