Skirting the Edges of Comfort

Let’s talk about something I see often in spiritual and healing circles:

“Lilith called me to face my shadows.”

“This tree asked me to climb her.”

“The devil tempted me.”

“The medicine took me where I needed to go.”

“My guides led me into this pattern.”

And while these are poetic and powerful ways to name our experiences…

They are also protective.

Subtle.

And sometimes… a little sidesteppy.

Because here’s what I know about the nervous system:

It’s brilliant.

It wants to move at the pace of safety.

And sometimes, it uses story as a gentle buffer between the self and the raw, undiluted truth of what’s happening.

“It wasn’t me that chose to go there,” we say.

“It was her. It was that. It was them.”

Because to fully own our power—our yes, our no, our rage, our hunger, our grief, our desire—is a lot.

It takes capacity.

It takes regulation.

It takes time.

So we skirt the edges of our comfort.

We tell stories that let us digest our growth in pieces.

And that’s not wrong.

It’s just not the place to stay.

Because here’s what happens when we keep giving our power away to the “call” and not the caller:

We miss the mirror.

We miss the portal.

We miss the part where we see our own sovereign soul at the center of the experience.

And that?

That’s the deepest medicine of all.

When we stop outsourcing our becoming…

When we pause the poetry just long enough to breathe into what’s really happening in the body…

When we say:

“I chose to walk through the fire.”

“I climbed that tree to feel my aliveness.”

“I sat with the discomfort and let it open me.”

… we move from buffering to embodiment.

From making meaning to taking ownership.

From fragmentation to wholeness.

And in that place—where the shadow meets self and nothing is blamed or bypassed—we build the kind of nervous system that can hold anything.

Without fleeing.

Without numbing.

Without pretending it wasn’t us who took the first step.

So if you’re skirting the edge of a truth right now…

If you’re letting story soften the sharpness of your becoming…

That’s okay.

But don’t camp out there.

Don’t make a home in the shallows.

Because the real gift isn’t in the tree, the goddess, or the trickster.

The gift is you.

The one who said yes.

The one who keeps saying yes.

Even when the work is uncomfortable.

Even when it stretches your skin.

You’re not being dragged by fate.

You’re dancing with your own becoming.

Let it be your dance.

And may your nervous system feel strong enough, safe enough, and resourced enough for your gaze to meet your own eyes in the mirror—and remain there.