a funny thing happened on the way to the sequel...
Debra Robinson Aug 16, 2026
It all started innocently enough…
As I was mulling over the ‘Sequel to Synchronicity and a Near-Death Experience’, I noticed that things needed a bit of tidying up. A little accumulation of papers and ‘stuff’. I set out to clean my desk and the surrounding area.
Writers have their little personal quirks…much like sports players.
( don’t tell me that writing isn’t a sport just because it’s sedentary😅)
Training and disciplining the mind and body to sit… (books don’t write themselves, I’ve found) and to draw forth a series of well-formed thoughts, and then tossing that ball (shaped like your very own head) onto the field where any rabble-rouser can take a whack at it takes a certain kind of steely nerve…especially in today’s climate).
Truth be told, however, I have the nicest readers!
Anyway, back to the simple practicalities… Generally speaking, clean dishes, bills paid, emails and phone calls answered and an orderly space do it for me.
Along the way, however, I realized that mental clutter needed to be handled, too. And for that, I adopted the practice of writing all the things that stood in the way of a clear mind.
In the beginning, grievances and irritations were the most prominent and persistent. I would write letters to people I was cross with or pre-occupied with. Letters that might be lengthy and detailed…Letters that would never be sent… But that writing got it out of my system, so I could clear my mind and get to work.
Next came the scraps of things that I would try to remember for later. Things like research notes, an admirable turn of phrase, the list of to-do, buy or repair things…all the random stuff that floats through the mind. I told myself to just write it down and free up my energy for what matters.
I realized that I had been assigning a lot of things to the ‘procrastination closet’-already crammed full!
Once the worst of the debris had been cleared, and perhaps most importantly, I began to catch and collect those bits of personal inspiration and insights that had been floating in that crowded stream…things that went barely noticed for lengthy periods, but that were truly valuable. Those pages never fail to amaze, re-inspire and realign me.
I opened running files on ghost.org, which is where I used to surrepticiously warehouse my stories…back when I was concerned that publishers would only consider fresh, unpublished work (I could care less about publishers now, thankfully).
When I write on the sunlit porch in the fresh air (the house is just my bonus room), there will be the sound of lawn mowers or neighbors, delivery trucks, etc. If anything threatens to interrupt, I simply write about that, too, so as not to lose the rhythm.
Keeping in mind that we have a natural circadian rhythm that cycles from left brain to right brain every 2 hours. I try not to push past the cycle when it calls for a break or change of direction for awhile.
(if you’re not familiar with this, just close your eyes for a moment, take a breath, and notice which nostril is more dominant. If it’s the left nostril, you are in right brain mode…better suited to creative work.
If it’s the right nostril, you are in left-brain mode…pay bills, do taxes, run errands, handle tasks.
This is why we get restless after a couple of hours of doing the same thing. It helps to work in partnership with these cycles (less needless frustration and self-flagellation).
(you can also play tricks with this nostril breathing to put yourself in the desired mode!)
More mental decluttering…
At bedtime, I take a few minutes to review the day and conclude any lingering issues. I take note of what I experienced, accomplished, learned and struggled with. Then I mentally press the ‘Release All, Renew All’ key and leave this troubled plane for awhile.
In this way, nothing piles up inside… Nothing is draining my battery. A clean daily slate awaits.
In one of my little left-brain break times, I watched a YouTube reel on Japanese decluttering.
That was the innocent part…
After watching it, I asked myself ‘How long does it take to fill up a little bag of clothes and odds and ends for the Goodwill store? A few minutes really…I could do that every week or so… Ah! Ok! ‘
I started that day. It felt surprisingly good! It felt somehow ‘right’… It was then that I remembered “I always feel better with ‘less’!”
Not a few of us have started over in life with very little…or sometimes nothing. That is all but ‘verboten’ in consumerist America, but gosh…what a freeing experience it can be!
Backpacking for a time with no fixed address other than the world at hand…or living in an empty house and sleeping on the floor for a year after a divorce…a time when I could ‘breathe’ again. Unfurl…unencumbered by all the trappings of WASPy marital existence.
Later, living on a houseboat with a 15”x 30” closet (ladies), was another experience of simplicity and freedom. From that home base, now older and wiser, a simple shoulder bag sufficed as I travelled the world solo for 9 months. I discovered my minimalist inclinations…
(I don’t always thumb my nose at convention…or do I?)
When I came here 4 yrs ago, I trimmed my life similarly, bringing only what I loved and had not had time to enjoy up north. I declared to my new neighbors who are terribly fond of thrifting (and hoarding) that I was “allergic to stuff”…highly allergic, I insisted!
I thought I was doing pretty well…but at various stages, (I’m up to ‘TAKE 12’ now) I found that I was still missing the mark somehow.
You know, these later chapters of Life are most potent, precious and fascinating!
I had a fresh canvas at long last…and it matters what I learn and do with this stage of Life’s adventure.
I’ve always been an outlier in this culture, so the typical retirement schemes just grate on my nerves, to be honest. As the passage of time reveals, our paths have diverged quite significantly.
So… As much as I like(d) old people and have had a very open door to everyone all my life…my life was now being handed to me along very different lines.
Old habits and ways of being can have a strong hold. I was, admittedly, very clumsy in my understanding of this new orientation, so I tried to make reasonable compromises …never a good idea.
I tried liking the old people anyway. I tasted their culture as it was pressed on me on all sides…and messed myself up. It was not my energy…at all! I got briefly entangled in their webs. Costly missteps… Those things and people were not pertinent to this new chapter… In fact, they were injurious to it. Our trajectories were opposite!
(trust me…trajectory is everything in relationships)
In the end, I tasted-but declined to swallow. I had to politely spit it out behind their backs and go for “Take 2”.
“The moment you start shrinking yourself for others, you betray the only life that you were ever given.”
I had been open…too open…not waiting for inner guidance to lead the way. I had only the merest outlines of what my new chapter of life might be like (and I was wrong about most of it).
In actuality, I needed time away from people…I was ‘peopled out’ after many years of serving.
The revelations of what people had become in the covid years added to that dismay. Too much had changed to imagine that there was any going back. It was time to deal with the new reality that had emerged from under its former cloak.
I made the occasional hopeful exceptions, only to be brought back several ‘Takes’ later to:
A series of ‘Takes’ later, my little decluttering exercise was expanding into something more comprehensive…
the desk, the mental clutter, the superfluous culture and its people, the old ‘me’.
There was more to come…
Little hints were given…
It was the Chinese Year of the Snake, merging into the Year of the Fire Horse. Evocative imagery…
Shedding an old life and persona, lightening the load to allow for growth and to pick up speed. Wriggling out of and casting off what dulls to release the inner fire…
Then there seemed to be a soft spotlight over my shoulder as I moved through my house.
I had been ‘not-seeing’ a number of things…for too long.
Things that didn’t fit. Things compromised. Things that belonged to the former life. Even some of the cherished things I had brought with me... I had enjoyed them finally, but now they were…and had been for months…a source of silent, subtle irritation. The old life was enmeshed with the new life.
The spotlight intensified a bit more…
I could not help but see… this furniture with this history, pictures on the wall, the once-trendy gray paint, gifts given where friendships had been exhausted, and contacts no longer resonated. Ghosts fluttered at will... I often found myself escaping my house. It should have worked…but it didn’t.
These things could no longer co-exist. I could feel it…though I’d tip-toed around it for too long. Everywhere I looked, I realized that these things were also draining my battery…more profoundly than the superficial situations of life. Moreover, I could see that my new life was organizing itself along similar old lines…
All of this resulted in a kind of low-level exhaustion…that I mistook for aging, etc.
These were reckonings…
I called a charity to come pick things up. There was a 10-day wait.
Meanwhile my fridge died and I went without for 1 week and then a 2nd week…another big reset.
In that interim, the now ever-present Spotlight was shining on my whole slightly out-of-kilter life. No stone was left unturned…
Where gifts were concerned, I opted to honor the kindness and pass them on. I blessed all kinds of memories and let things go.
‘When in doubt…Toss!’ became my motto.
I went by feeling, not ‘logic’ which had been proving to be my downfall.
Old stuff…old ways of being, of dressing, of eating, of going about my days, old ways of presenting myself, both personally and professionally- all went out the door. I was being thoroughly deconstructed.
When the truck came, almost everything went out the door with it…along with their heaps of burdensome energy.
In the aftermath, did I miss miss any of it? (I can be sentimental that way…) Not even if I tried… It was all ‘good riddance’. I felt great relief. Suddenly unhindered…like ballast had been cut loose.
I even wondered briefly if I had just become irrelevant in my ‘retirement’ years… Was I a cast-off, as well?
But I remembered a few other experiences of ‘pruning’ in my life…for this is what was happening. This was not the first time I’d had everything stripped away in order to clear the way and take me to the next level.
Pruning can feel quite heartless when it’s happening. It’s as though you are being slashed to the ground and dying after ALL you’ve worked SO long and hard to bring forth…
before you realize that the Wise Pruner has a plan to encourage future growth.
But you DO experience the dying of the old…and it feels quite personal. You are at the mercy of the experience. There is no crystal ball to see ahead.
I had only the silent Spotlight illuminating the next step.
An old life had taken leave-only I was still clinging…
Why? And at what cost? Those questions arose…
The next moves were presented in a curiously orderly way. All I had to do was follow the prompts. I was gently, yet continally, pressed forward. I was shown things I’d missed. I was taken over old ground until the job was complete. It was intelligent and thorough.
I was getting a complete overhaul along with a deeper understanding that was much needed. I watched the removal of everything and everyone that was no longer mine to carry.
I did my final counseling sessions that week, as well. While I enjoy it…it is second nature to me…I could feel that it was no longer time appropriately spent. Assignments were ending…
I was finally paying attention to the inner promptings that had been churning just below the surface…where the energy of things was recognized and acknowledged.
My subsconscious had been picking up the information all along. I had just been dismissing it…out of dull habit, ennui, giving my energy to others. The energies associated with intuition that I reserve for helping others, had left me depleted in regard to my own progress. Countless little encroachments that ate the hours took their toll. Situations that were emotionally unclear or unresolved had been left in limbo. The tokens were everywhere…
It was time to focus on my real work. My inner sensing, instinct, deeper knowing was coming to the fore. It had always been there, but now it was leading the way. It was establishing a new way of being. It would take a little time…
The body and the nervous system register things more keenly than does the brain. We forget that the nervous system and the body react first. It’s how we detect danger or things that are ‘off’…before the mind gets it.
How many times had I winced when I walked by a gift or a picture? Each one carrying a message… A piece of jewelry? Clothing? Something that had never felt quite right or comfortable, but I felt sympathetic or obligated. I made excuses and put them in the ‘some day’ category…
My space was full of reactions that I had elected to overlook! Things I was tired of wrestling with. It wasn’t just background noise or chatter by this time. My space was heavily contaminated…
No wonder I felt weighed down, unsettled, stuck or had a sense of unease or dissatisfaction.
I revisited an old lesson from my time with the spiritualists…Whenever a neighbor brought a gift of food, it went straight into the garbage-untouched! The same was true of all gifts, in fact! I found it quite bizarre…
But when Bob, who had been a friend and mentor at the spiritualist community for years (that was my understanding), was getting ready to pass, it became suddenly imperative for me to remove every gift, book, card, hypnosis tape…everything. I remember walking through my house repeatedly finding still more to jettison. It was the strangest thing! But Bob was operating under a different framework with a different intention. Through long association, he had forged an energetic link that was drawing heavily on me. As he was undergoing chemo, I found myself turning pale, losing weight and becoming ill. Those old ones knew a lot about energy and how to use it to manipulate outcomes. I had to break the connections on all levels to stop the drain and get back to life.
(That can be said of many spiritual teachers, shamans, monks and gurus) It all made sense in time… Not every gift is given with a simple good-will intention. Some are binding. Some are points of connection.
More seemingly ordinary people practice witchcraft than we would imagine…
A man gave me a necklace once. His mother confided that he had never allowed himself to become this serious about anyone before. I could never wear it. It felt like a slave chain. It signalled his ownership of me…
An unwelcome Scottish suitor gave me his grandmother’s claddagh ring, insisting that I wear it! Restless, heavy dreams followed. He was found to be a warlock, of all things!
Having had a few of these experiences, whenever I feel discomfort or warning, though it may not make sense at the time, I heed the instruction without question or hesitation. It always proves to be right…
Applying the idea more broadly, we’ve all seen examples of older people sucking the life out of their children or grandchildren, etc. While there can be a wholesome, even when uneven, exchange of energy…there is the kind that is suspect…subtly draining and debilitating. This happens in all kinds of parasitical relationships…
Moving forward… The energy I was hemorrhaging toward people by giving it where it wasn’t warranted, and the energies freed up by removing the many sources of irritation, were returning to me with a good force! This alone is transformative. This was a Recovery of Self. Energy, humor, liveliness, spontaneity, growth and freedom returned! My health was on a discernable upswing. It made it possible to move cleanly through the ‘overhaul’ with easier clarity and concentration.
I sat quietly in the now emptied spaces…
and then came a soft prompt…and another. ‘What is the energy that belongs to this time and space?’
Over the next few weeks, the empty spaces were ‘Spotlighted’. I was learning to read the prompts…
Things did not come in any expected order…at all. I was, by this time, becoming fascinated by the process.
Slowly…because God doesn’t rush transformation…every room was cleared and corrected. Bare walls, new paint, only a few things replaced, a bit of new furniture and decor…all fitting like puzzle pieces…all untouched by old associations. The porch and outside areas would be renewed in the morning. A few more things were spotlighted and removed promptly. A last trip to Goodwill.
Everything ‘fits’ the energies of now…uplifting, brighter here, calmer there, private reminders of the essence I embody. Fresh, with splashes of surprising beauty that thrill each time I pass by. There is a harmony…
From the soft light-filled pale green of bamboo in spring to the pale clay and driftwood that replaced the heavy gray, beauty and tranquility flow in every direction. Beach scenes carry me briefly throughout the day to the natural beauty and repose of this time and place on my ‘serious’ days.
While I knew it would be good to be rid of the old, the ill-fitting, the poorly executed and the haphazard, what I wasn’t prepared for was its opposite!
‘Following the prompts’ brought about a result exceeding what I would have achieved-and I love to design.
I will never forget the Word that was spoken to me at the sudden end of my professional decorating life years ago…
“Now go out and design a Life!”
(sometimes we forget to look up and see what all this is really for…)
This is nuanced, with touches of humor, images evocative of the present stance in life. This could have been an exhausting experience, but it wasn’t. All I had to do was relax and follow the guidance. Nothing rushed-everything in a gentle order that was fascinating to observe. I still find myself shaking my head and smiling at it all.
Clearing and simplifying the space led to a state of peace. Procrastination faded away.
The supportive nature of everything that surrounds me, rather than the subtly draining environment, is unexpectedly powerful! There are moments of positive thrill, joy and pleasure throughout the day… I feel the gathering momentum as energies and inspiration flow with less resistance…without impediments or drag.
“Butter and honey shall he eat. Thus shall he learn to choose the good and refuse the evil (best translated as ‘inferior’)” Isaiah 7:15
”Thus shall he learn”… God’s preferred way. A superior foundation that sets the standard for what follows… That’s how this feels…
~~~~~
Then the Spotlight moved from the house to my house…my body. Again, the gentle, yet persistent, orderly progression of things. The next steps so touchingly offered and guided that struggle and procrastination melted away. Thorough once again…knowing more will come, but for now, to let each thing land and have its impact. There is a timeliness to everything. I just follow the prompts…and I rest where other things would have crowded in before… even where writing is concerned. All the old nagging, driven internal voices have gone silent.
It has been a hidden season-one of becoming, not doing. The field is clearer and the fresh canvas has come alive…
(I have watched a number of fellow writers in a state of collapse during this same time frame…)
Another very unexpected aspect…
As I upgraded my space, I naturally looked forward to sharing it with others, but I unexpectedly encountered a subtle wall that read ‘No visitors allowed’.
What?! Off-limits to everyone?! Why? An abrupt change of course for someone who’s always had a very open door…
What I am coming to understand is that this is sanctuary…and a crucible…
Something is being forged here.
There is a sense of sovereign solitude…a strategic retreat, rest and recalibration. A place of concentrating and directing awareness and energy…
A set-apart world not to be intruded on or mixed indiscriminately. Taken to a spiritual leveI-in the highest sense of the word, a house of a Geisha and what that evokes…refinement, an extraordinary level of beauty and development, hidden, specific and protected.
A time to rebuild according to my own internal architecture.
(old folks often have little to do but gossip and intrude…Spirit knows my neighbors better than I do…that’s why the boundary has to be firm…no interference. The space needs to be uncontaminated by their opinions, expectations and projections on all levels)
Along the way, I see more clearly that the roles I have played were for a purpose… They were roles-they were not ‘me’. I shaped myself to fit the assignments. At certain junctures, I learned to live without a job description or portfolio-to divest myself of the roles for a time-(interesting in this culture). At this point, I would be unwise to assign myself a new role (or to be assigned one by the culture).
One might ask if I am just creating a perfect life for myself…but that’s not quite it. The feeling that undergirds all of this is that of an UN-IMPEDED LIFE.
For what purpose?
In part, to make the most of these next chapters…to realize the potentials we are endowed with…to be more alive to Life and to not fall back into dullness… to become clear enough to receive signals I missed before… to be a vessel for what is higher than ‘me’… We shall see…
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Some of the insights gleaned along the way…
I was reminded that the Japanese cover mirrors, tv screens and shiny objects at night. They are considered energy portals and amplifiers. Images, photos and mementos in the bedroom also touch us. They are psychologically and emotionally broadcasting to us in our unguarded sleep state. Try removing them and sleeping in a neutral space. (I removed books from my bedroom years ago for that reason. They always felt like work undone…burdens)
Scented items reach us on a subliminal level, bypassing logic, entering directly into the limbic system, the oldest emotional center of the brain, where memory, longing, attachment, fear, and emotional imprint live beneath conscious thought…where the mind is most vulnerable through channels it cannot easily defend against during sleep. Certain scents change your emotional state before your mind even understands why. A scented gift can carry someone’s hidden emotional energy, conveying a subtle force.
I have to admit that I wondered if I wasn’t getting carried away with some of these ideas, so I experimented with them to see if they had any validity.
An old friend had given me an exquisite antique incense burner made with rare rose alabaster. I realized I had never been comfortable with it and could never bring myself to use it. The feeling was tugging below the surface for 10 years. I moved it from my bedroom to the trunk of my car reluctantly…and then on to Goodwill. He contacted me 2 hours later…for the 1st time in 4 years! That kind of made a believer of me...
Jewelry, clothing, hats-anything worn against the skin…those things were also up for review. Next were cards and emails…. loads of them…holding emotional space, keeping me stuck-not moving on. It was time to extricate myself…to move forward with less baggage.
I adopted the Japanese practice of leaving outside shoes at the door and wearing slippers inside…making a demarcation between the outer world and the inner sanctum. Not only was my housecleaning time cut in half, but it helps mentally to keep these boundaries.
We live in a culture devoted to self-improvement, resulting in a head full of harpies crying ‘We are never enough!! There is so much more to do!!’
Too many voices…the kind that give rise to needless guilt, overwhelm, confusion and procrastination. Those voices are silent now. They have nothing to grasp onto.
Now I wake in the morning knowing that there is nothing I have to do… Everything is handled. Ready for the next steps…
Sometimes when we look back on our lives, many of our most life-changing times were not planned. They happened by chance – or by what later felt like the mysterious pull of fate. A catalyst that interrupted the looping narrative. A sudden disruption of the existing situation. A cleaning of a desk…
🌅
Against the backdrop of this time, the more serious concerns of world unrest in all its permutations occupy my time and heart. I work, knowing my place in the scheme of things. Thankful for the brave people on the front lines bringing the truth to light as the world finds its way forward…
It’s good to be back!
As always, thanks for reading… Feel free to like, share, comment and subscribe.
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