How to Hold Fear and Freedom Together
Plus, My Most Requested Recipe
An image of Stirred Poached Eggs & Toast. © Maggie Battista 2024
These times are wild. Are they wild for you, too?
As I sit here, typing, I just shared the story I’m about to share with you with a sweet woman who is helping me pack up my stuff for storage.
She follows me on Instagram and offered to help me pack in preparation for moving out of my home. And here we are, talking about magic and messages like we’ve known each other for years.
I’m super grateful to everyone here and most especially to those who are helping me during a time when I feel less able to do some basic things, like stand on my foot for more than an hour or two. (Or find an affordable place to live/work/heal for three months by the sea—reach out if you have a spare first-floor bedroom!)
And honestly, I don’t know where I’m going long-term. I just know that if I listen closely, I’ll be guided toward what’s next.
And that gets me to my stories for today, which are rooted in two feelings that bobble up and down in the folds of my body during this wild time.
I can choose to feel fear or I can choose to feel free. And in this case, I choose both, sometimes simultaneously.
I think I’m not the only one feeling mucho fear right now.
Perhaps your world is also falling away.
Perhaps your worried about your survival.
Perhaps your trying to hear what’s next for you from within amidst all the external voices yapping at you.
Perhaps your just wondering if this world will persist through its pain.
I get you, I’m with you, I feel all these things, too.
You are not alone. We are all soul family.
And today, I hope these stories that walk the lines between fear and freedom hold you, at least, for a moment.
A few weeks after returning from Oregon, on that prescient trip when I landed back in Boston and heard that I definitely needed to spend more time elsewhere, I was driving back to the sea from an appointment in the city. Eventually, I approached a point where two major highways intersect.
Now, there’s always a back up at this intersection, cars lined for nearly a mile just to get on the crowded highway that heads north, toward vacation land, toward freedom, and definitely toward my town by the sea.
Per usual, I slowed my speed and got in line, waiting patiently for the cars to move, even just a little. But they didn’t move, not for minutes.
I settled in, preparing for a wait and checked my rear view mirror. Behind me, about a block’s length away was a big truck, driving closer to the speed limit.
Now I’m going to explain this slowly but this actually happened in moments, not minutes.
I noticed the truck coming toward me.
I noticed that it wasn’t slowing down.
I noticed that it was maintaining its pace.
I noticed that if it didn’t slow down, like in a second or two max, then it was going to plow right into me.
And it wasn’t going to tap me. It was a huge, fast truck. It was definitely going to crush me or do some serious damage.
And in those moments, my body froze but not before my mind and my soul had an entire conversation.
The mind said, “Well, surely, it will stop.”
The soul replied, “It may or it may not stop.”
The mind said, “Well, I can’t do anything about it. If I go to the left or the right, I’ll be hit by someone else.”
The soul replied, “You may be hit by someone else.”
The mind said, “But I can’t do nothing.”
The soul replied, “You can do nothing or something.”
The mind said, “What if it’s meant to hit me? What if this is a message?”
The soul replied, “Everything is a message. And the message is, you get to choose.”
The mind said, “I choose to not get hit. But I also choose to not hit anyone else.”
The soul replied, “Okay.”
And when the truck was about fifteen feet from the back of my vehicle, it sharply swerved to the right, creating a loud screeching noise, and sped off onto the off-ramp, leaving the highway entirely, like a ghost, like it was never there.
The mind said, “I was almost killed by that truck.”
The soul replied, “Almost but you weren’t.”
The mind said, “What’s the message?”
The soul replied, “Are you going to choose to feel fear or feel free?”
The cars began to move again and I slowly puttered onto the highway heading north, heading toward the sea.
I spent the entire drive, and all the weeks since, surfacing that question before many big decisions.
“Are you going to choose to feel fear or feel free?”
And the answer has been a resounding, “Both.”
My current life is falling away, the decks are being entirely cleared.
And, I called in everything that is happening to me. And you did, too.
Wait, let me be clear.
You absolutely did not call in any sort of marginalization, harassment, abuse, or steamrolling due to racism, capitalism, sexism, ageism, classism, or heterosexism.
That kind of oppression is real. And, your position and privilege determines how much physical and emotional labor is required to navigate it all.
I’m talking about something slightly different. Let me explain…
Right now, my current life is falling away.
I have to suddenly have surgery.
I have to move out of my home.
I have to find a new temporary home (or multiple homes) in which to heal.
I have to sell all my non-essentials and put what remains in storage.
I have to refine my routines and redesign my work to accommodate these shifts.
And though it feels painful, I persist.
Though it feels emotional and draining, I metabolize and integrate.
Though I am incredibly uncomfortable living in the not knowing, the truth is…
I AM LIVING IN THE NOT KNOWING!
I’m allowing my soul to hold me, soothe me, and guide me.
And the moment the shifts began, I heard the soul say,
“You called this in, sweet one.”
I replied—because, yes, I do respond aloud to my soul, and you will, too, if we work together—I replied, “If that is true, I want to know what’s next and I want all these shifts to arrive gently, softly, slowly.”
The soul said, “First, you don’t get to control what’s next. You set the intention and direction of your energy, and then you allow all-that-is to respond.”
“And second,” the soul continued. “You do get to determine how gentle and soft and slow these shifts land within you, in your sweet soul. You can choose and hold and soothe yourself, or you can resist. It’s up to you.”
So…
I choose to have surgery.
I choose to move out of my home (that hasn’t been aligning for a while now).
I choose to find a home (or multiple homes) in which to heal.
I choose to put my essentials into storage.
I choose to refine my life and work.
I choose to call in this new timeline in order for my soul to grow and my work to impact more sweet souls.
And these kind of energetic shifts are what I invite you into during our private work together.
How are you calling in the shifts unfolding in your life?
Why are you calling them in now?
What are they teaching you?
As I am sitting at my desk, writing to you, the sweet woman who is helping me pack is exchanging stories with me. It’s a beautiful little storytelling session, where one story pings another.
It’s lighting up my soul in major ways.
I already knew that source was supporting me when she showed up, sweet smile on her face, to help pack up my stuff. But then she shared this story and that sealed the deal.
I’m sharing it with her explicit permission.
Let’s call this woman, Lydia.
Lydia used to have dreams, or more like nightmares, about the Grand Canyon. She had never seen the Grand Canyon in real life, only in her dreams.
In her dreams, Lydia imagined witnessing the immensity of the Grand Canyon, standing up by its edge, feeling so much fear at its magnitude.
She worried about getting too close to the edge.
She worried about falling to her death.
She worried about it swallowing her up.
Now, again, this fear, this feeling of fear, was in her dreams.
One day, Lydia decided to face this fear.
She took a trip with a friend to the Grand Canyon. And when she arrived, she walked up to it, took it all in.
She actually witnessed a man, a father, standing close to the edge, a particular edge that had no fence, with his three small children. The mother was standing off further away from the edge, unfazed.
Lydia squeezed these words from her mouth, “Get those kids away from the edge.”
Her travel buddy said, “I think the father heard you.”
She said, “I meant for him to.”
The father quickly snapped from his own gaze and guided his children away from the edge of the canyon, closer toward flatter land.
She felt free to say what she needed to say to protect those children.
Now, Lydia went to the Grand Canyon to see if she felt the same fear from her dreams. And Lydia was able to affirm that, yes, it was scary near the edge of the large crater.
And also, she was able to affirm that she was so glad she stood near the edge.
The crater was so deep and wide that she also felt a kind of freedom there, freedom standing before its vastness, freedom from the artificial cage she had manufactured in her dreams to hold and perpetrate her fears, freedom to say and do the things she needed to say to allow the fear.
And given that I was writing about fear and freedom, and she happened to volunteer this story, I got to witness a kind of magic in real life.
After she told me that story, I told her I was writing about fear and freedom, and she felt all the hairs on her arms stand up.
She said, “I just got a rush of energy.”
I said aloud, “That’s magic.”
And, I heard the call to share that with you.
I’m moving through some extreme changes. And I know you are, too.
My clients speak about the pivots, losses, and fear that are unfolding for them in real time.
And given that you are feeling change, and I am feeling change—I hear a call to share how we hold feelings of fear and freedom simultaneously.
Because it is possible.
Because that is the invitation before us—you and me—every single day.
In my situation, April brought a bevy of changes—
I’m leaving a home without a new one lined up.
I’m preparing for surgery to heal a year-long issue.
I’m spending money I didn’t plan to spend.
I’m sharing honestly, transparently, on all my platforms.
And, I’m growing my soul-led business, onboarding new clients through it all.
And while my body feels it all, my soul is holding me and soothing me through these changes.
My soul is actually helping me to—
Process independently,
Attune somatically,
Feel deeply,
Metabolize and integrate regularly,
And, it is teaching me, yet again, how to hold fear and freedom simultaneously.
And here is how you do this—
Each morning (or evening), you sit in silence and drop into your body.
You ask the soul, “How am I doing? How am I really doing?”
And the soul may reply with visuals or words or sentences.
And the body may respond with feelings or emotions.
And you allow all of it to rise and spill from your lips, your eyes, your breath.
And once you have presenced all the fear, you ask the soul,
“How will it feel on the other end of this?”
And the soul may reply with a buoyant feeling or an exciting visual.
For me, the soul is showing me a visual of a new expansive place where I may live for a few years.
And if this is hard or challenging for you to do on your own, let me guide you.
The last thing I wish to say to you is this. It’s a big one. Please listen.
You do not have to hold your fears alone.
One of the biggest lessons I’m learning right now, that my soul is asking me to learn, is how to share my uncertainty, be vulnerable, and ask for help.
On the day I discovered that if I was moving, I needed to move inside of two weeks, I called up a dear friend to ask if I could stay with her for a short period prior to surgery. That was a difficult call to make.
We are brave. We can do hard things. And we can also ask for and receive help when we can’t do it alone because we do not have to do it alone.
The cultures and systems of this dimension condition us to believe that it is dangerous and even disgusting to expose our soft underbellies.
I harbor some deep conditioning that says that asking for help is a kind of weakness. And while I know there are so many lessons I will continue to learn through the next few months, especially when I’m not able to put weight on one foot for many weeks, I am beginning to believe, to remember, to feel in my body, that asking for help is a kind of strength.
It is strength that helps us move past our fears, that helps us feel free enough to say, “I could really use some help as I move through this time.”
And the more you and I ask for help, the more you and I become even more fortified humans and, even more so, fortified souls. The more I ask for what I need, the more I feel like I call parts of my soul back to me.
I also wish to say—this time is fueling my soul work like no other time in my life and I know that because many of you are asking to meet, feeling into parts of yourself in my words, and coming aboard as clients.
This kind of reciprocity is what makes us soul family. It’s what makes us ancestors to each other, in this dimension and all others.
If I may help you as you help me, please book a session to explore ways to do this.
Stirred Poached Eggs & Toast
An image of Stirred Poached Eggs & Toast. © Maggie Battista 2024
This recipe is what is holding me through this time. It’s less of a recipe and more like a couple steps to assemble the kind of comfort food that only a grandmother, an ancestor, could offer to soothe the soul. It was offered to me by a grandmother who used to eat it made by the hands of her grandmother.
Ingredients:
Two eggs, poached
One piece wheat toast, toasted
Sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Directions:
Place the eggs in a small bowl. Rip the toast into tiny pieces and scatter atop the eggs. Stir together softly but well. Season with salt and pepper. Eat slowly, sitting in that sliver of sun streaming through your window.
