"Bumpity-Bumpity-Bump" is the sound of Winnie-the-Pooh's head banging on the stairs, dragged along by Christopher Robin, his resident child. This has been going on now for 85 years--which is exactly how long it feels when you're being dragged down(stairs) by the child within you. I say "you" but only in the falsest sense of the word. This week, I've spent a fair amount of time in dear Pooh Bear's predicament.  

For two years, my dear friend, Sandi, and I have been planning a trip to Hawaii. I'll spare you the names and number of things that have prevented our Big Island Adventure, but we both believe in "right timing," and in December, it arrived: frequent flyer mile tickets aligned with the availability of my sister and brother-in-law's condo in Kona which dovetailed with an open window in Sandi's demanding personal and work life. And from there forward, everything else fell under the spell of the "Law of Least Effort." Yet with just a few days until departure, I fell under a spell of my own: depression. Bumpity-Bumpity-Bump.

I ran the "usual suspects" through my mind, but they all came out clean if not squeaky. For intervals I couldn't work, and the very thought of packing depressed me further.  I struggled not to make matters worse by being disgruntled with myself. Alleviation arrived the moment it occurred to me (yet again) that I was running a pattern: often when I manifest things that expand me and more fully reflect the life I want, I sabotage myself...emotionally, physically or literally. Earlier this year, just prior to a trip that was based on strong intuition, I had a problem with a back crown and lost my glasses the day before takeoff. Oh, unexpected expenses! a not-so-little voice said, Should you really be taking this trip?

 So now, with the islands calling, it was time for a talk with Christopher Robin, or in this case, "Chrissy Robbing." After a bout of deep breathing and another of gentle prodding, here's what I got from my tearful saboteur: "I just want to curl up! I just want to curl up!" She meant it literally, eyeing the unmade bed dead ahead. But I got it symbolically: Contraction is her comfort zone in the face of my expansion. And what is depression if not a state of contraction? She is the part of me that does not relate to my widening landscape. She doesn't experience it as a life that belongs to her. And she "ain't goin'." So we brokered a deal: she didn't have to be happy, but she did have to accept that this is our life now...and there's no turning back. I assured her that I would take care of everything and that she could curl up and go along for the ride.

As usually happens, as soon as I was off and running, the depression vanished and when I checked in with Chrissy, she was contented if not exuberant. I used to live this little girl's life, but now she is learning to live mine and hopefully, it is becoming "ours." The pattern is changing with every risk I take to navigate the stairs of life out into the bigger, wider world where I belong.

So fresh from extricating myself from Pooh's dilemma, here are my suggestions for moving from "Bumpity-bump" to "Uppity -up!"