Finding the I in the Storm: My Year of Storm Chasing
“And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.”― Haruki Murakami
It was happening again. The now all too familiar loss of equilibrium. A disturbance in the force that lifts me from my grounded center like a tornado repossessing a house from its foundations in a dizzying, disorienting spiral.
Intense emotions start to transform my inner landscape, turning a grounded calm into a swirling maelstrom. A cacophony of voices descends out of nowhere, stealing my inner peace. It’s suddenly so loud that I can no longer hear myself.
My stomach drops as I watched my inner knowing whoosh out of sight. My connection to the truth of who I am and what I hold dear growing ever more faint as I am teleported into an alternate reality, watching the known world disappear.
2021: My Year of Storm Chasing
I’m not sure what kind of year you’ve had but for me, 2021 has felt like a class 5 hurricane. A series of them actually. I started the year feeling grounded and strong. I had found my keel and was confidently, joyfully navigating the rough, transformational waters that 2020 brought to our collective ocean. I was connected to my inner wisdom, aligned with my soul’s purpose to bring the gifts of Contagious Vulnerability to the world, and riding a wave of momentum and direction that I’d been preparing for through dedicated, intentional practice.
Then the storms came. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that I called them in and embraced them head on. I often describe myself as the calm in the storm, but the truth is that as I reflect on my life’s journey, I’ve always been a storm chaser. My curious seeking and passion for self-discovery predisposing me to meet — even seek out — big energies with fearless, often ungrounded and ill-considered enthusiasm.
The Startup Vortex
The first storm was a professional one. A dear friend offered me a spot on the founding team of a cutting-edge, biotech startup on a bold mission to change the face of medicine by redesigning how we detect and monitor diseases. I got to define the brand voice of this new entity from scratch and bring it to life through copywriting and content creation as their Head of Experience, the resident humanist on a team of brilliant scientists and technologists.
This opportunity swept in out of nowhere and lasted for an epic and exhilarating 4 months before it swept out with equal suddenness. I loved every minute of my brief tenure, braving this powerful storm of entrepreneurial energy with courage and determination. The journey brought many gifts but when it was over, I found myself as if on a distant shore, far removed from the grounded center of my being, disconnected from the core practices of Contagious Vulnerability — including this important weekly practice of writing and meaning-making — that I had worked so hard to establish in the previous year of pandemics.
A Love Storm
The second storm was a romantic one that started brewing just after the professional one took hold. At a birthday gathering in March — an intimate affair that was just supposed to be me and two dear friends and the magical culinary delights of Chez Panisse — a random stranger showed up who was certain that she knew the perfect woman for me. An aligned, divine feminine partner that, if you’ve been a faithful reader of this series, I had been calling in since I decided to come out as queer in the middle of the pandemic. True to my nature, I leaned in like a meteorologist reporting live from the Gulf Coast during a hurricane.
Our six-months together brought many gifts. It was my first committed same-sex relationship — my first committed relationship of any kind after a 6-year period of journeying solo through life. It gave me the opportunity to curiously explore what partnership means to me and, more surprisingly, to consider whether a committed partnership is something I’m really wanting at this point in my life. Like the professional storm I was chasing, it began to pull me away from my calm grounded center, but unlike the startup storm system, I became aware of the storm drift live as it was happening rather than after the fact.
The inconvenient truth of our coupling was that it involved me spending far more time in Los Angeles than I ever had or wanted to. LA is not my least favorite place on earth but it’s in the top 10. The energy of this sprawling metropolis sucked the life out of me and began to poison the well of my spirit, leaving me ungrounded, reactive, and drained of energy.
It was perhaps the abrupt end of the startup storm chase during the summer that allowed me to recognize the drift that was occurring in the storm that had captivated my heart and take action. Six months in, I made the difficult decision to end the relationship and return to the calm serenity of the Compound of Joy to reflect, restore, and reconnect with my keel.
Drift Consciousness
These twin storms that I engaged with for the better part of 2021 taught me a lot and gave me the tools and awareness I needed to choose a different response to the most recent energetic disruption whose effects I gave voice to at the opening of this piece. The details aren’t important. What’s important is that I noticed the drift immediately — noticed how my engagement with this external energy source began to rapidly wrest me from a grounded, aligned state of being and threatened to pull me down into a vortex of darkness — and acted to clear it within 48 hours of its appearance. This time, I was prepared.
Thanks to my storm chasing in 2021, I’ve become more discerning about what does and does not serve me, what is and is not aligned with my highest good and my soul’s purpose in this precious lifetime. I’ve learned how to set clear boundaries, to speak my authentic truths even when they are inconvenient for myself or others, and to hold my center as I navigate the powerful, transformational storm systems in our collective consciousness.
There Will Be Storms
The truth is, there will always be storms. Some will be dark and brooding and others more like solar flares, wild with energetic aliveness. As Murakami wisely observes, “When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.” It’s through our engagement with the external energy systems that are our relational experiences that we learn and grow, that we find mirrors that reveal hidden truths we wouldn’t otherwise see.
The Trick is to Stay in the I
We cannot live as egos in isolation, hiding from the world in metaphorical storm cellars, nor can we live buffeted about at the mercy of other people’s energies. The trick is to stay in the I of the storm. The I is the grounded center of your being, the keel that keeps you steady when all is dark and swirly or wild with exhilaration and excitement. The I of the metaphorical storm is the place of lowest pressure — the one that it takes the least effort to maintain — and yet it is not a static state but a dynamic one that requires continuous attunement to ever changing external conditions.
One definition of attunement is a “kinesthetic and emotional sensing of others knowing their rhythm, affect and experience by metaphorically being in their skin, and going beyond empathy to create a two-person experience of unbroken connectedness by providing a reciprocal affect and/or resonating response’. For me attunement means always keeping a close watch of the Me and the We, never straying too far away from one or the other.
I am not talking about ego separation here. Finding the I is about recognizing when I’ve strayed or am straying too far from my zone of integrity, of alignment with my highest good — from the truth of who I am and why I am here. I choose to continually engage with the powerful weather systems of our collective consciousness for the self-discovery and self-healing essential to the realization of my soul’s purpose in this lifetime. And I can do so on my terms, with agency, not as a piece of debris being buffeted helplessly about by the intense winds.
I know, it’s Been a Minute
It’s been just over 9 months since I published my last Medium piece in the Contagious Vulnerability series. A series which had a weekly cadence for most of last year! I feel a bit like I should have started this with “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned…it’s been 284 days since my last…”. Thankfully, I’m not Catholic and, while I won’t say that guilt is an entirely useless emotion, it’s one I don’t spend a lot of time with as it doesn’t serve me.
I’ve missed this intentional practice of exploring what’s alive for me on my journey of self-discovery and giving voice to my authentic experience of transformation each week, live as it’s unfolding. It’s how I metabolize and make meaning of what’s happening for me. It’s also how I attempt to be of service to my fellow storm chasers as I look for and share universal truths from my own experience that might support you on your own journeys of becoming.
It’s been an amazing year, calms, storms and all. As Willa Cather observed: “There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm.” And like Van Gogh, I have found that “There is peace even in the storm.”
I’d love to know what the storms of 2021 have taught you if you feel like sharing. And if you need a seasoned guide to help you navigate the powerful weather systems in our collective consciousness, I’m here to help.