Welcome to the Starla Frequency blog
I intended to start this blog back in January. In fact, I wrote START BLOG on my to do list more days than I can remember, but that's as far as I got. The intention was met with resistance, and I'm glad that I honored it. At the start of 2022, I didn't realize what an inward year this would be for me, how much shadow work and healing I'd be called to do, how strongly I'd feel the urge to pull back from platforms of expression.
This energy colored my year so prominently that by autumn, I had to have invasive and expensive work done on water and sewer pipes at my house, which resulted in the bathroom in my sound healing space needing to be, essentially and unexpectedly, demolished. I was already taking fewer sound healing bookings, and this event made my sound healing space impossible to use, until it could be repaired.
I've known people going through challenging cycles of rebirth to experience pipe or water issues where they're living. Perhaps this has happened to you, too? Mine were as extreme and paralyzing as any I'd encountered, and I took the message to heart. The universe was calling me to pull back, to go even deeper inward. This has been the year of putting on my own oxygen mask. It's true what they warn you on those flights-- you can't help others until you first make sure that you can breathe.
I've been learning to breathe this year-- metaphorically and also quite literally through deepening yoga and breathwork practices, and by reading the fascinating book Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art by James Nestor (TL:DR Stop mouth breathing, it's causing us a myriad of health problems). Learning to breathe properly has allowed me to anchor into this moment. The world around us is always whispering its wisdom, and this year I learned how to get quiet so I wouldn't miss the lessons. Of course, I learned this the hard way by first resisting. We'll talk more about that in another post.
But back to the pipes-- ahh, the pipes that extend from my house, with the purpose to take away waste we no longer need. Well, they had become so weak and corroded that tree roots had grown through them, and everything I thought was releasing was, in fact, stuck. That seemed to me symbolic, and in no way coincidental. The pipes were there to help me heal, if I let them be my teacher. So instead of wailing as they pulled out the plumbing fixtures and dug up the ground, instead of wondering "why me" as they delivered the whopper of a bill, I simply observed the reactions that this situation stirred in me, and saw it as an opportunity to make different choices. First, I wanted to run away. Then, I wanted to numb myself with drugs, alcohol, or junk food. Next, the urge rose up to fix it as quickly as possible, to do everything in my power to make it "perfect" as soon as I could.
I did none of those things, and in fact the situation became a major catalyst for me to explore parts of myself with tender curiosity. Oh hello, inclination to avoid facing reality- how is that hindering my growth? Wow, look at the many methods I've cultivated to disassociate- what are these allowing me to avoid seeing clearly? Could I allow myself to sit in the mess of my house (and mind), and embrace the imperfection before rushing in with the clean up crew?
It's a couple of months later as I write this post. Downstairs, a construction crew is finally repairing the bathroom. Last week, they discovered another broken pipe that was choking off the water pressure to parts of the house and yesterday, they repaired it. The contractor and I did a celebratory jig together as he turned on the sink with a flourish, demonstrating how much more freely everything is flowing in my home. I already sensed this; a coming unstuck where there had been resistance, an easing of blocks that had been there long enough.
And that brings me back to this blog, the one I intended to write back in January, but which felt so unwilling to emerge. I didn't know why at the time, but it turns out I was like those pipes; so much within me in need of repair before I was ready to let life flow through me. These days, we have all these platforms for proselytizing, and there's so much incentive to constantly share, promote, lecture, launch. But sometimes it's actually time to clear out those old pipes.
When I started writing this blog post, there was some filler copy there, encouraging me to share what this blog is going to be about. It's not going to be about plumbing-- and I hope I don't have any more stories about damaged pipes to share. It is going to be about healing-- in all of it's messy sprawl-- as I experience it and highlighting what I'm learning on my own healing journey.
I'm relieved to have a place that allows for long stretches of thought, that doesn't require learning some new twist of an algorithm, and where I'm not seeking out the dopamine hit of likes and comments. It will be an organic space, that I allow to grow at its own pace and without pressure. I hope it will inspire conversation, connection, and communication. And I mostly hope it will help me to see myself more clearly, and to help you do so, too.