Just Below The Surface

For a long time, I thought understanding had to happen in my head.

If I could figure something out, make sense of it, find the reason, then maybe I could trust it.

But what about everything happening within us that we aren't consciously aware of?

What about the choices we make because something simply speaks to us?

The places where we feel different.

The things we're drawn toward without knowing why.

Maybe there's more happening below the surface than we realize.

I recently stumbled into some unexpected evidence of this in my own life.

I was researching some of the artwork I've collected over the years. I wasn't looking for anything particularly profound. I was curious about the artists, the signatures, and the stories behind pieces I'd found along the way.

Most of the pieces weren't chosen because I understood their symbolism.

I simply liked them.

Some spoke to me immediately. Some lifted my spirit. Something in me said, I want that in my home.

But as I began learning more about them, I noticed something I had never seen before.

There was a common thread running through my collection.

Protection.

Guardians.

Rising out of darkness.

Transformation.

Strength.

Growth.

Piece after piece carried some version of the same story.

Without realizing it, I had created what I've started calling my guardian council.

And I just stopped.

Because consciously, I have spent so much of my life searching for safety.

Trying to understand. Trying to control. Trying to figure out how to trust. Trying to feel like I was somehow in the care of something rather than carrying everything alone.

And yet, while my thinking brain was frantically searching for it, another part of me had apparently been quietly building it all around me.

I didn't know what I was looking for. But something in me did.

I've spent a lot of time learning about the ways our experiences can shape us outside of our conscious awareness. Old patterns can operate below the surface. We can move toward what's familiar without realizing why.

But I hadn't really considered the possibility of unconscious healing.

What if survival isn't the only thing happening outside of our awareness?

What if some part of us can also be moving toward what we need?

I don't know exactly what to call that part.

Self. Spirit. Intuition. The body.

Maybe it doesn't need a perfect name.

For me, right now, Self/spirit feels pretty close.

And apparently, Self/spirit may be smarter than my brain.

It just never got the credit.

For years I've struggled with the idea of being in the care of. I thought I was supposed to somehow believe that something was holding me. And because I couldn't feel or understand that in my head, I assumed I hadn't found it.

Now I'm beginning to wonder if I've been looking for the wrong kind of evidence.

Maybe some of the evidence is in the things I've been drawn toward without understanding why.

In the choices that only make sense when I look backward.

In what my body seems to recognize before my mind has the words for it.

That's asking me to develop a different kind of trust.

To listen to my gut a little more. To become curious about what happens in my body instead of immediately retreating into my head.

That's still challenging for me.

But now I have evidence I didn't have before.

I can look around my own home and see it.

While I thought I was running scared, another part of me was quietly gathering images of protection.

But something has changed.

I don't feel quite so alone anymore.

Because maybe I've been in the care of something all along.

Not something I had to find outside of myself.

Something that has been quietly walking with me, below the surface, the whole way.

Messy. Bumpy. Possible.-Leigh