Lobsters and the seven year itch

I was talking over cookies and fruit salad last night about shedding old habits.

Lobsters shed their shell roughly once a year.  It takes approximately half an hour.  To do this, they risk a great deal of harm while they are being fully vulnerable, exposed and lacking protection. When it's done, it will eat the shell to recover minerals that will help harden the new one.  I took a class once by Stephen Sims, author of River of Awareness, who spoke of this.  He says that lobsters will "go to the reef" in order to shed their shell.  And symbolically like the lobster, we too feel vulnerable and exposed when transitioning, when we "go to the reef."

I feel like I'm on my way back from the reef.  Some day I'll have to go back again I'm sure, only to shed another skin to reveal a better, enlightened way of living. For now I'm happily riding this current and enjoying the rewards.  Being able to look behind me and think about the way I lived my life in the past only encourages me to propel forward, upward and onward.

But the process can be daunting.  When you're in it, it's hard to see past the murky feelings and doubt.  Sometimes it can feel like your feet are stuck in the mud, like you're not going anywhere at all, but the world keeps revolving, spinning faster and faster around you, and it's harder to get a grip.

I had a teacher in university who totally instilled the mantra, "trust the process."  It was her saying, and now I'd love to know who taught it to her. Her course was all about development (organizational, if it matters), and she encouraged us to trust this way because that's where all the learning takes place.  If you lay down a little trust, say those words, "trust the process," it grounds you and keeps you real.  Or at least it did for me.  Now I say it quite often.  Once it became practice, I wanted to pass this little gem of a saying along to others, much like my prof did.

Every 7 years we go through a major transformation.  I don't know whose belief this comes from to tell you the truth, but I believe it to be very true.  I'm now 28, and am going through a huge transformation.

My mom has a book of Icelandic runes that I often refer to when feeling misdirected in life.  Recently the book went missing which I find mysterious on its own, but I plan to replace it soon enough.  For many months in the past 2 years, I would pull runes that would tell me I needed to go through a transformation before I reached my goals.  I'd get frustrated with the repetitive messages because I was looking for easy answers. How the hell do you "will" a transformation?  Then I gave in. Once I sort of turned over my trust to a deeper meaning, things seemed to happen naturally on their own.  (Law of attraction?)

At 21 I had a conversation with my good friend Carolyn, and we both adamantly professed our 7 year transitional phase.  It was great to acknowledge, and at the time to humorously bitch about, and it's happening again.  Except this time I have no complaints.  THE SEVEN YEAR ITCH!

Life is good.  I'm getting it.  I feel like I'm a pretty functional adult, and that's encouraging on its own.

I love lobsters,

Katie