It’s 4am and I’m sitting in bed, blood-stained and battle worn after another (five? six? seven?) mosquito night.
I never did buy those magnetic screens and the mosquitoes noticed. With this streak of cool weather, it’s been murder.
Murder of mosquitos. Hell on me.
The room is finally mosquito-free. I think. I hope..
It’s a weird time for inspiration to strike. Before I went to sleep, I was thinking about the concept for this email, not yet clear, and now, here I am writing it.
Have you ever watched the Game of Thrones series or read the books?
George R.R. Martin does something masterful. He introduces a character who is utterly despicable. Hateful and evil. Bad to the bone. The kind you just can’t wait to see die.
🦟(Kind of like a mosquito…but I digress.)
And then somehow, as point of view changes and stories evolve, you start to like them.
The villain you hated in the beginning ends up being your favorite character.
Spoiler alert – don’t continue if you plan to watch or read GoT.
Case in point: Jaime Lannister.
One of the first times you meet him, he pushes a child out a tower window, causing him to be paralyzed for life.
Absolutely heinous, right?
Then Martin changes the point of view. We’re seeing through Jamie’s eyes. We understand why he did what he did, and he’s not such a bad guy anymore.
The villain changes. Or perhaps our perspective does.
I can’t help but think the same thing has been happening with my feelings.
Historically, I have hated certain feelings: fear, anger, jealousy.
Feelings are the villains in my human story, my own Jaime Lanister. I wanted them gone.
Then one day I heard this beautiful, wise woman called Mavis Karn say:
“Feelings are a love letter from god. Fear is our friend.”
I remember exactly where I was, hiking with dogs in Durango, Colorado, listening to one of those online classes I can’t stop showing up for.
I knew by the way Mavis said it that she was seeing something real for her, and it felt true.
But I couldn’t for the life of me see how fear could be a friend to me.
Now, I’m not talking about the physiological fear that happens in life or death situations. That type of fear is clearly useful in providing heightened calm and pure survival knowing. When I’m in a war zone, I hope that fear shows up.
🦟(4:28 now and I’ve been bitten again. I knew there was another mosquito in here! I swear I’ve developed a sixth sense for these insects.)
I’m talking about the little fears showing up as anxiety, worry and overthinking. The fear stories that kept me small and safe in a life that didn’t feel like mine.
That fear was pure villain in my story.
Except Mavis planted a question in my soul that grew over the years, until lately, it doesn’t look like these villains are villains anymore.
They’re information. Feedback.
Those feelings let me know the quality of the thinking I’m living inside. Without them, I wouldn’t notice when I’ve wandered into a story that makes me suffer.
And more than that, without these feelings, all of them, I’d be missing out on the experience of being alive.
I’ve slowly begun to accept more and more of the “undesirable” aspects of my human experience. Unpleasant feelings. My habits and flaws. Other people’s habits and flaws.
Every experience has a glossy sheen of aliveness. I don’t always see it, but if I look at it from just the right angle, it’s always there.
I don’t know how it happened. I didn’t even know it was possible.
🦟(4:38 and she’s bitten me again. I still haven’t found her.)
I still swear and curse and whine and gossip and complain and rage, and feel all the feelings that come with that. I may even feel more than I did five years ago.
But something is different.
Life doesn’t look like a villain that’s out to get me anymore. It looks like a friend who’s on my side. Even when it arrives disguised as a villain.
And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to hunt down this mosquito. I haven’t become that enlightened.
Yours in love and play,
Steph 🐲❤️
