Same place, new look. Heidi’s Table 2015.

Happy New Year, my people!

On January 1 I took over the lease for my office. Even though this did not come as a surprise, a few days before the actual date when my dear office mate of the last year would be moving out, I found myself feeling quite anxious. After waking up really early (again!) and not being able to fall back asleep, I enlisted the help of a really good listener:

I told my really good listener exactly how wobbly and scared I felt. (What a relief to say things just as they are to someone who listens and wants to understand.) Then I told my really good listener that I could feel it like this heaviness in my middle. I pointed and put my hand there and my really good listener (named Jeffrey), just kept listening.

Then I told Jeffrey about how something in me was scared of taking on the added rent. (Again, relief! So helpful to say a fear out loud.) That scared part of me said things like, “What if you fail? Then what?!” Jeffrey just kept listening. Then I told Jeffrey that something in me was afraid that people would stop coming to me altogether…that they’d stop liking my massages and that I would never be able to convey how amazing a thing Focusing is. (Yup, also felt good to say that, even though something else in me felt embarrassed to admit that I was afraid people just wouldn’t like me anymore.)

Listening and being with everything inside me just like it was really brought relief. I hadn’t wanted advice and Jeffrey had not given it. Instead, Jeffrey had been present with me in a very Focusing kind of way, a way that allows things to change seemingly on their own. Listening in that Focusing kind of way is engaged. It’s active. It’s interested. It’s curious. It’s present.

The next morning, as if out of nowhere though I’m quite sure as a result of having been with everything just the way it was, I asked Jeffrey if he’d help me do something brave and big to mark the change for my office.

And that is the story of how my office came to look like this… I loved it before, and now I get to love it in a new and all-of-my-own kind of way.

I hope you visit soon. My table very much looks forward to having you on it.

Warmly yours,

Heidi

P.S. The paint color is called “Wheatfield.” Maybe one of these days I’ll tell the story of how we picked it!