Gratitude Wall

How do you even say it? What words can describe this feeling?

The feeling like everything at home is colored with a different lens now. Things that felt important before Anahata's, no longer do, and the pieces of myself that I neglected beforehand, now feel violently important.

I came out of last year and went into this year with a wonky sense of being. Do I actually belong here, or am I taking up space that's meant for someone else? Am I just a placeholder until something or someone more suited to this community finds it? I'm not going to lie, I wasn't planning on coming back this year for quite a few months.

Not because of anything in particular, I was just having a hard time accepting that I might actually belong here.

I couldn't feel more different today.

Once I decided to go full send on this year, I dove in. Sent in my applications for facilitating, volunteering, vending, and was accepted for all 3. This sense of responsibility would normally cripple my ADHD laden brain, but I felt emboldened. Empowered. Wanted. Those were huge feelings for me.

Just like a lot of others in their 30s, I have been estranged from a friend group that I thought I would grow old with. I watched as love and support turned into jealousy and resentment. I watched the occasional fun nights of drinking and listening to music turn into terrifying addictions, myself included. I watched anxiety and paranoia turn into abuse.

So to say I have been wary ever since of truly letting people in, is an understatement. I felt like I left my purpose behind with them. I had to set aside my own need to support community and be supported by community, to be given the bare minimum because it felt familiar.

Coming into AP 2024, I thought I had lost my purpose completely. I no longer felt called to go out of my way to support or be supported. I no longer wanted to set up gatherings and be surrounded by community. I wanted the safety of my own energy. I wanted to "make it on my own" because that felt safer.

It no longer feels like the safer option.

You all, everyone reading this, whether we personally connected or not, showed me something this week. In all of the loving interactions you had. Every time you put your own needs aside to make sure someone else was being taken care of. Supporting The Rusted Rabbit, and all of the other people trying to make a living out at these events.

You showed me that without community, we can and will be left behind. Being left behind by community is the most dangerous thing that can happen to a spiritual being. We NEED each other, despite the possible consequences of getting vulnerable. You all showed me so much. You showed me that I hadn't lost my purpose, I had misused and misplaced it. You showed me how to find it again.

Like I said at the end of our workshops, thank you all for being brave this week. For putting yourselves out there, in whichever way you chose to do so. You got out there and put yourself into the magic that is Anahata's Purpose, and helped to conjure that magic yourself.

A couple of mantras that came to me this week or were given to me and have helped:

-I am not here by accident.

-I can do hard things.

-To live is to do. To do is to possibly experience consequences. To possibly experience consequences is to live.

I love you all so much, and I hope you are kind and gentle with yourselves as you reassimilate into default life. Make sure to bring this feeling out into the world with you. We are the conduits of this magic, make use of that.

Thanks for reading, Popcorn Pappy

Drop any pictures or memories of our interactions below, would love to see and read them ✨💚✨