Till the cows come home
I don’t know who originally gave me that title “extrovert” but I leaned into it. Okay world, I’m an extrovert, let’s do this. I do always remember I loved parties. I still love parties. The pool parties as a kid and the frat parties in college. I was the one who did not need a drink to dance on tables but rather drank anyway because that just is what we all did. I never wanted the party to end but that wasn’t because I was an extrovert. My conditioned codependency and performing skills had gotten really good. Turns out, underneath it all, I have extreme anxiety, about everything all the time everywhere. I was operating as a closeted highly anxious person living on the surface performing as an extrovert - or whatever I thought that meant. I didn’t need to go to a doctor to get diagnosed or hear from a licensed therapist that what I was feeling wasn’t really who I am. I began to become aware of my anxiety and performance in real time. This was exactly at the time in my life when I moved to Hawaii and began to quiet the noise of my external life inside my mind. It wasn’t until my life slowed down that I began to hear another voice inside my body. Over the last 3-4 years I have been learning to focus on what brings me joy and practice the art of living in the moment. It was only when I turned to nature that I began to see the performing and coping strategies that I relied on to move through life. I saw another way, a truer path that felt more relaxing.
I learned through awareness (and an expert on the WCDHT podcast) that I was a “highly functioning codependent”. I leaned on coping strategies, made up beliefs, opinions of those around me to what I was supposed to be doing in my life. I bought into so many different diets, workouts and social situations that I thought I was supposed to do in order to gain a certain type of outcome. If you do this, you will feel like this. I was drinking the koolaid of what was happening around me instead of listening to what my body needed. I always wondered why some of my friends made it look so easy, how they seemed to be thriving with these choices and I wasn’t finding the results as promised. I swam around in this fish bowl for decades, trying to push myself to attend parties to be seen, extending myself to say “yes” to all the things because it was what you were supposed to do. So I did, I tried it all, attended it all and consistently showed up in life with my big girl pants on.
Life was good! However as I began to dig into this inner work, I realized I actually wasn’t connected to my purpose. I filled my needs with external sources and I became tired of moving in circles. I called bull shit, I knew there was more. I challenged my societal diagnosis of extrovert. Did I really want to go out for dinner with those friends? No. Did I like that outfit I bought for the occasion of the dinner? No. Covid actually helped fast track this concept for me. It helped redirect my intentions and inner gut. Covid gave me the excuse to choose myself, after all it was a pandemic, now was a good time to choose what was best for my immediate health. I learned to ask the question “what does Krista want?” I wrote it on a post it note and stuck it on my bathroom mirror, my computer and in the car. Whenever a question arose that required an answer, I would stop my spinning thoughts and ask “what does Krista want?” Often times my true answer was opposite of what I would have said. I couldn’t believe how much I lived my life in autopilot of what everyone else wanted or what I thought would make everyone else happy or safe or more enjoyable. I spent about 2 years really diving into this concept, writing about what came up for me. Getting curious about what was true and where I developed these external beliefs. I began to listen to myself and acknowledge the voice that sounded so familiar. This choosing what Krista wants wasn’t easy… it brought up many arguments and difficult situations with those around me and within myself. In order for me to answer the question “What does Krista want?” I needed to be still. In order for me to be still, I needed to make space for processing. It was through grounding practices in nature that I found access to the flow state that enabled me to even stop and ask the question “What does Krista what?”
The house we spent our 2nd year in is in Waimea at the base of Anna’s Ranch. Each night at sunset, Anna’s white cows could be seen at the top of the hill. For the next 30-60 minutes they would slowly come eating their way down the hill in a collected group. I began to find this to be a ritual in my day and I would look forward to that part of the evening. The cows brought me back to something dependable. The sun always comes up and will always go down. The stars are there even when you can’t seem them during the day and the cows will always come home. It became something we all looked for when we felt that transition time between afternoon and evening. It was in the awareness of that noticing that caused a reaction to happen each day. Go outside to see if the cows had begun their coming home. When I spotted them it triggered a warm feeling, an exhale. Home. I wasn’t really invested in where they eventually went or what went on at the bottom of the hill. Perhaps it was for shelter or to drink from the river. Maybe they always came down because Anna’s cows have been doing this for generations. I began a relationship with the cows. I could see when there were babies and you could get sense for which ones were teens and which were grandmas. They had a pecking order and they flowed together as an ohana.
Watching these cows for a full year was part of my healing journey. It was that time of day that I would write in my journal, mainly a stream of consciousness — a release of the movement within my body. The more time I spend in the silence, the more peace I found in coming home to nature. I began to recognize the wholeness of me — I’m not an extrovert or an introvert, I am me. I don’t require a label to be understood. My viewpoint expanded and I can see more parts of me at one time.
XOK