Igniting the flames of fear and freedom.
Skiing empowered me to f**k around and find out.
Hi my loves, it’s been some time since I last spoke and I miss you.
I just want to let you know that I’m starting another Substack, The Flow Oasis. What’s the difference one may ask… well Liberation through exploration is an online journal where I share my personal experiences and the lessons they bring through storytelling.
The Flow Oasis will serve as a newsletter for my business, Tianainflow. Which I plan to relaunch my website by late spring. In the meantime, I will be diving into my essence as a Wellness Facilitator and sharing practical ways for learning how to connect to your energy.
The formless field of reality, energy we don’t see.
I am a Qigong practitioner in training and so much more and I look forward to all the online and in- person opportunities that are seeking me.
Anyway, I said all that to say that I’m giving you the option to subscribe on your own, although I will be transporting my subscriber list automatically.
haha you’re stuck with me
I’ll be back with the link to subscribe. I still have some back end stuff to work out lol :)
Thank you for rocking with me!!!!
Now to the main course…..
In December
I felt this strong urge to pull back from online writing so I did and I rested. I saved some for myself and decided to be in life more. Yes, I wrote in my journal but only sometimes.
Writing is my portal to collecting data about life and comprehending it.
Writing is my science.
By stepping back, I became detached from being in my head all the time and I tapped into an expression that wasn’t necessarily new but deeply familiar.
I embodied trust.
The mind doesn’t trust, but the heart does.
I discovered a new way to be devoted to myself.
The fabric of my devotion to life now extends into everything I touch, I see, I speak, and I love.
I can start by saying that, winter grew on me.
Wild statement, I know.
Now what I don’t know is the true origin of my people. Yep, I’m just a girl from Louisiana.
The trial ends there for me. Colonization? Slavery? Do those things ring a bell?
Something in my blood feels deeply Caribbean though. I’m talking carnival and shaking ass in the sun….
so the fact that I was kind to winter and winter was kind to me is evolution because southern girls don’t play in the cold but this southern girl did.
It grew on me so much that I agreed to go on a ski trip. The entire prep for the trip riddled me with nerves, here’s why
I don’t enjoy the cold, which we’ve already covered
I don’t enjoy not knowing how to do something , we can discuss this ego bruise at a later time
I’m an earth sign of course I think I know everything
After the ski trip, I learned the value of falling, getting back up, and making mistakes.
I think everyone who can ski, should try it once
I’m a hard ass, and although I cringe at the thought of not knowing it all, I will still deliberately seek out new experiences because I get turned on by trying. Challenging myself is my kink. There, you know my dirty little secret feel free to use it against me *inserts wink*.
So to no surprise, I had a blast skiing.
As much as a physical workout it is, you better believe me when I say it’s a mental workout too because nothing happened without my participation. If I gave up at the top of the slope, how was I gonna get down???? Amongst the friendly strangers passing by asking “are you okay?”, and the bestie being the nurturing scorpio that she is, I was my biggest cheerleader intercepting any thoughts that told me “I can’t” “I won’t” or “I’m scared”.
Any thoughts that would ultimately keep me stuck on slopes with the finished line feeling so far away.
Above all else it was an endurance test for my mind.
My heart damn near fell out my chest and into the fresh white snow several times as I slid down the slopes, full speed, with my fear burning a hole in my pockets, at least fear kept me warm.
The emotional ecstasy alternating between joy and frustration is quite the experience and boy was I joyfully pissed off.
The best experiences have a way of bringing up a range of emotions, none considered to be better than the other.
but wait, I would be lying if I acted like the experience was gumdrops and lollipops. I do admit that skiing is a hassle and that equipment is the devil.
It’s so f**king heavy and unruly, once you have the equipment on, it’s on because it doesn’t make sense to take it off. Walking with just the boots on made me walk like a mummified zombie doing the shoulder lean.
Ski’s and ski poles in hand dragging me down every step forward.
Mind you I am 5’0 my legs don’t extend very far.
Trying to slide walk while still wearing the entire get up is a little bit easier by comparison but equally annoying so I had to pick a poison.
This was one of the only times that falling down and not getting back up felt like a safe home because the entire process is a headache. When I fell, I couldn’t just stand up like a normal human being, no I had to roll over on my side, swing my legs around with the ski’s attached and hike the poles into the snow and lift myself up.
It’s chaotic
I was out of breath
I felt out of shape and questioned my entire existence
Simply put, It’s a full body work out.
Overall, logistically speaking, skiing was annoying but it was lit. I want to do it every year.
Fun fact: The ski resort was chosen by the scorpio bestie because it was named “Shawnee” Mountain and sounded like a black name lmao
“Get out of your head” that’s what the Scorpio said .She insistently repeated these words because she knew that the art of skiing was about relaxing into your body and trusting yourself. The mind must cease.
That pretty much sums up what life is all about.
So many of us struggle with the ideas of self that we’ve created in our heads about shit that most likely won’t come true.
Skiing gave me an outlet for tapping into fear on purpose but transmuting it into freedom.
Every new experience is the key to releasing residual tension in the mind, body, and spirit about what you can’t do.
I get turned on when I go out into life and prove myself wrong every single time.
How ravishing *sips imaginary lycee martini*
So don’t be afraid to admit that you don’t know, and be willing to loosen your grip on what you think you know, saddle up, prep the horses, and just f**k around and find out how great you already are.
I just love your writing and your ability to transform big energy and thoughts into something deeply relatable and less overwhelming. what a treat to sit with this letter in its fullness of emotions!