What if this is the way?

I am in a challenging season of life.

The beginning of the year was a gently curving upward spiral of making plans and steadily working towards them: growing in confidence, excited for the future.

And then the ground fell out from under me and and suddenly all I know is sick wrench of the fall, the crunch of hitting the floor and the daze of picking myself back up. I have fallen before, I know how to get back up again. I know that it is part of the journey, uncomfortable but sometimes necessary.

But then it happened again.

And again.

And again.

I go on long daily walks in between writing sessions along the Union Canal, through the Rose garden and then back along the Water of Leith to home. During these walks I sometimes listen to music (Snooze by SZA), an audiobook (Kingdom of Ash by Sarah J Maas) or a podcast (We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon, Abby and Amanda). Mostly though, I walk without headphones and try to breathe. I am writing a chapter a week at this point in my thesis writing. The work is going well, but it is hard. I can feel the terror pressing in on me, waiting for my resolve to drop or my focus to slip. When I walk, I focus on each step, each breath and the fact that in that moment, I am okay. I do that the entire walk. It takes all my focus to do it. Sometimes I am angry. I don’t want to walk mindfully, I want to drink to excess, be loud, be everyone’s problem, make disastrous decisions and damn the consequences. But I am intolerant to alcohol and I don’t actually want to burn my life down, I just don’t want to be the only one on fire.

The Union Canal at Golden Hour

One day as I was walking and breathing and being angry and feeling terrified - I had a thought.

“What if this is the path to your dreams? To my highest self”

The thought was so unexpected that it made me laugh. What if, instead of being something that I needed to run away from, extinguish or curse at, the fire was actually how I would get to be the person I wanted to be and live the life I most wanted to lead. The thought was calm. It made me laugh. It felt like it could be true. Suddenly, the fire didn’t feel as scary. I still walked and breathed and felt the flames, but they didn’t feel like they would consume me anymore. Instead, I felt like I was being transformed.

In traditional Chinese Medicine, Summer is associated with the element of Fire. Right now, the Sun is in Leo, a fire sign. The north node (the head of the dragon in traditional astrology, which symbolises our hunger that cannot be sated) is in Aries. Another fire sign. Fire is the element of transformation. Of purification. Of ritual and rites of passage. So perhaps it is no surprise that I feel like I have been thrown out of the frying pan, and into the fire of forging.

Yesterday was another particularly firey day in the forge of life, so today I took myself into the rare Scottish sunshine to learn from (and be consoled by) one of my favourite teachers, Rumi. Rumi’s words challenged and inspired me. When the ground feels so unstable under me, I need to find the foundation that will never fall, the protection that will not cease even when I feel like I being burned alive with the stress and panic of this time. Rumi helped me to find it and in order to remind myself how to find that place again, I came up with some affirmations. I share them here in case you might benefit from them too:

I choose to walk the path of transformation

I surrender to the fires

I allow all that no longer serves me to melt away

I trust

Martha Beck, a teacher and guide I encountered through her book The Way of Integrity and then through her weekly Gathering Room podcast, talks about something she calls “grit magic”. Although life wants us to be joyful, peaceful and held in loving energy, Martha notes that there is something in our souls that wants to know just how deep we can go with these human minds, bodies and imaginations. It is this curiosity, that yearning that can push us to places that are uncomfortable, painful, impossible. We want to stop, it feels too hard. But if we keep going, we may just find the magic underneath the hard. Martha quotes Ernest Hemmingway, who, when asked if he loves writing, replied “no”, “but I love having written”.

That is how I feel about writing this PhD. It feels too hard to continue. But I have this curiosity, this little shining hope that maybe I am good enough. That I can do it. And it is on that gamble, the faith I choose to place in that tiny glimmer, that I walk into the fire.

And I will not turn back.