Days 110 to 113 Loving is Awesome and Scary

Last night I got home from an awesome biz conference in the gorgeous town of Asheville, North Carolina (there are fireflies! FIREFLIES! little tinkerbells!). I had an very cool time at our “Come As You Are In 2017” party. I pretended that my vest was of camel fur that I found in Mongolia, and that I worked 6 months a year and traveled and hung out with my family in epic places the rest of the time. Ooooh there is more. It was juicy.

Here’s a pic of some of us. To the left are some pretty incredible women entrepreneurs. To start is there is AudreyReynolds, epic travel consultant, of BeYourOwnTravel Hero.com. Then there’s post-partum botique doula, Devon Clement, of MamasBestFriend.com, (me of Anaverzone.com) and Lani Harmon – supah natural light photographer and inner radiance capturer of, duh, LaniHarmon.com. There were also women helping families with the challenge of autism, travel photography coaches, legacy story capturers, gluten-free mentors…on and on!

a few of us at the Come As You Are in 2017 party

The biggest lesson from that: many of us tried to think about what to wear or what we’d look like, but in the end, it was about how we were feeling in 2017, what we had accomplished, what we were creating, what we had learned...and, for me, how we had loved.

When my partner, Thai, opened the door after I arrived from the airport at 1am, I was soooooo happy to see him. Like, hugging and cuddling and holding-for-several-minutes-before-tearing-the-clothes-off kind of missing. And as we fell asleep, I found myself wanting to stay awake, just holding him and being held by him, reveling in being able to totally be present with experiencing my love for him.Wanting to stretch out the minutes into hours and days. I wanted to so KNOW this feeling inside and out, so that I may recognize it as it passed me by on the street, or to sense it in the air.

I played with opening my heart more and more. I felt this warmth overcome me. I had flashbacks of when we first met 12 years ago, his helping me open my first email account in Kathmandu (“anapurnas” my username;), the subsequent love letters sent over that email…the struggle to try to make it work, but the distance that made it so difficult. The 12 years between during which we were friends. And more recently, hearing him tell me as we fall asleep by rivers and mountains that sometimes he can’t believe he is finally with me, that’s it’s me next to him.

I am brought to tears as I can’t believe the same thing. He’s here. Right next to me. Let me feel this fully and deeply.

Thank fucking god he’s asleep, cuz this would look kinda weird, me all pretzled around him with wet eyes and wide awake staring at him.

Then I got scared. My heart wanted to close. The idea of loving someone so much was kind of freaky. I was full-on basking in love, but not full-on opening my heart.

I don’t even have kids…but the idea of loving another being so much is so powerful, and it created a pause.

I let myself imagine what it would be like, to love completely and with reckless abandon, mindful presence, and respect. There was a sappy movie called, “The Vow” on the flight home, and the one thing said in it that stood out the most to me was this phrase:

I promise to fiercely love you, in all your forms

Deep breath. Don’t we ALL deserve that?! And, we all MUST experience loving another in that way, whether it is our parents, or our children, or our partners. And then we need to extend it to ourselves. Ironically, perhaps we need to start with ourselves…

So the protecting, the pause…I’m OK with it for now. This is juicy, precious stuff. I AM juicy, precious stuff. And so are you. I choose to see this pause as a bow to myself, my sacredness.

I will love fully. This I know because, as Hafiz says below:

Your love
Should never be offered to the mouth of a
Stranger,
Only to someone
Who has the valor and daring
To cut pieces of their soul off with a knife
Then weave them into a blanket
To protect you.

…and he has done this 🙂

Note: Ana Neff is a personal life coach, mentor and FreedomJunkie™ She helps individuals awaken their lives of freedom and personal success with confidence, clarity, self-love, and passion. Her monthly Freedom Junkie ™ eZine goes out to hundreds of subscribers. If you are ready to take your life and your world to the next level, you can learn more about her coaching programs and download her FREE Getting Clear Guide by visiting FullOn365.com Her new site and blog, Anaverzone.com, will be up to rock your world soon!

Day 3 – Full-On Vulnerability

Today I woke up with a message from my partner saying he’d be coming home a half day later than planned. He’d been backcountry skiing in Bend for a few days. The snow was awesome, the mountain was beautiful, and he was enjoying exploring. Awesome for him, right? But what came up for me was surprising.

You see, I’ve been cheated on in a past relationship. Once (as far as I know). And even that was something I thought would never happen to me. I had always been blessed with trustworthy people in my life, and my partner is no exception. I felt for the most part healed from that, so even though I knew I was over-tired and not in the best mindset, it was still disappointing and somewhat sad to see a shadow from that show up again. I admittedly had the thought (albeit fleeting) that perhaps he was with someone else, someone more exciting. And they were having a stunningly beautiful time together. And here I was sleep-deprived after a delivering a baby in the early morning, feeling alone because it wasn’t me. Even though there I am, in that picture over there, backcountry skiing with him not too long ago.

How fucked up is that?

Very.

I felt guilty for even thinking it. And who knows…maybe if I wasn’t trying to live Full-On every day, I would have let the feeling and thought go unnoticed. So, today I am living full on by being transparent about how messed up my silly head can be at times, how vulnerable little things can make me feel, and how uber normal I think it is.

I did my Jedi mental juju and arrived at the deep knowing that I needed to allow myself compassion, to be patient and heal, and that the pain of those nerve endings growing back (I’ve coached a lot of women healing from c-sections) didn’t mean my fears were true. I know that I am loved, worthy of love, and that my man is truly amazing and trustworthy. If I hadn’t noticed that feeling, this tenderness towards myself would have been a missed opportunity, not to mention the reminder of my deep appreciation for my man.

And in the end, in the final cozy Ziji resting place, I knew that no matter what, I’d be fine. So I could go ahead and breathe, and let go, and make the most of this day. And be really happy for him. And look forward to his return. In the meantime, it was time for me to find my joy, my backcountry ski mountain, my fresh pow for the day.

I had hesitated in writing about this because, ya know, I’m never supposed to be scared. I’m supposed to have taken so many freakin’ workshops and graduate courses and for fuck’s sake I had cancer so get over it, right? (sorry, I do swear a lot when I talk about the Big C). But I figured we all benefit from hearing other’s soft spots.

Whew!

Note: Ana Neff is known as the Ziji™ Mentor. She helps individuals awaken their lives, their businesses and their success with radiant inner confidence. Her monthly Ziji Up! eZine goes out to hundreds of subscribers. If you are ready to take your life and your world to the next level, you can learn more about her coaching programs and download her FREE Getting Clear Guide by visiting www.Ziji Life.com