A Fish Out Of Water

The past seven months I have been on a deep sea diving expedition within myself. I would even dare to say I have reached the ocean floor of me. It has been wondrous, indescribably delicious, painful, new, exciting, and life altering.

My Mastery program gave me the necessary equipment to plumb the fathoms of the 70% of me that is water. I have been swimming in a school of like-minded women, and, because of them, I have traveled deeper and farther than I ever dreamed imaginable. Their discoveries have been mine and mine, theirs.

I have transformed into a species whose once unfamiliar habitat is now where I feel most at home. I doffed my diving suit and diving helmet, unbuckled my weight belt, and released the air hose back to the surface. I grew gills. My fingers and toes webbed themselves, and my eyes generated a protective membrane. I have marveled at the life that exists below my surface. I have spelunkered underwater caves that were previously inaccessible to me. I have encountered myself as whale and minnow, clownfish and shark. I have explored it all.

Look at me at the bottom of me! I am all wavy, flow-y, and curvy; an intricate part of the dance created by my fish sisters and me in the early morning tide! How perfectly fluid, open and expansive am I?

I am indigenous to myself! My work is done!

Except for one teeny tiny thing…My impulse is telling me it is time to bring all I have discovered to the surface of my life.

But will I get to the surface, hoist myself onto the boat only to flop around helplessly and then expire for lack of air? How am I going to exist without feeling like a fish out of water? I worry that I have forgotten how to breathe in sync with someone else or that I will shy away from revealing my miraculous webbed appendages, membraned eyes, or my beautiful life-sustaining gills. How can I remain wavy, flow-y, curvy without the tide’s gentle movement to calm the sometimes turbulent waves of being in relationship?

There are practical things I can do. I can ascend at a bends-free pace, so I give myself and my body time to readjust. I can also look around and notice that my Mastery sisters are with me. I am not alone.

Finally, I can recognize the truth that was revealed while living in the underwater me. While I am indigenous to me, I am endogenous to the world. I learned I can adapt to my outer environment by growing what I need from within.

I am officially bi-coastal: at home both on and under the surface of me.

Now all I need to do is find the right earrings to show-off my gills.