Last Friday I legally changed my name. Though I was divorced in 2018, and have been using my maiden name ever since, it took me until last Friday to make it legal.
Up until last Friday, I couldn’t tell you what took me so long. Me being me, I of course examined it and questioned myself practically to the ends of the Earth in those six years.
Was I afraid of letting go of my ex husband’s last name? Had I not let go of him? If not, was I afraid to do so? Was I afraid of letting go of the version of me that stayed married to him? Do I have an aversion to returning to my former name? Do I want to go by an entirely new name altogether?
Honestly, the two or three years following my divorce were very dark and could not bring myself to step foot into a social security office to do the said thing. The pandemic happened amidst that and the social security office, along with the rest of the world, shut down. After some years, it just became one of those things that I’d get to eventually.
All the while I’d just present myself as “either Bremer or Bork” when people asked what last name was associated with my reservation or subscription or membership or account. I could never remember, and which name I used was dependent on how much legality was involved.
The government knew me as Jenny Bork. To the rest of the world, I was Jenny Bremer.
Last Friday I was laying on the floor. It’s a thing I’ve been doing lately. To ground, to hold myself in my own awareness and presence, to rest deeply in a space of liminality and quite frankly just not knowing what to do with myself. To surrender to where I’m at, to be in acceptance of that space, and to open my arms to receive all that is already here.
To mostly stare at the ceiling.
After months of building a practice of taking out 1-3 people our every week for coffee to build community and connection, working a very full time job, facilitating a local women’s group, attending a weekly Innovation Mindset class, and pushing as hard as I could to build a business, I reached what felt like a chasm. I had been doing all of the things that I thought were right, and yet those things weren’t getting me to where I had expectations of being.
Forget that I built a wonderful community, and gained coaching clients, had more money coming in, etc. All I could focus on was what I wanted that I did not yet have; a thriving business and stepping away from my corporate job.
So, I laid on the floor. Almost immediately I heard “change your last name.” Being a habitual signs, messages, and synchronicity follower, I committed to doing so despite my questioning as to how that would help the cause. All I knew was that it felt like the next right step when I didn’t know what to do otherwise, and after six years - it was time.
The next day, I found myself at the social security office. I walked in as Jenny Bork and in a matter of five minutes walked out as Jenny Bremer. I know, it’s just a name. But if you had literal hours worth of time, I could tell you how it’s so much more.
The next day, I was communing with the floor again and heard “Jenny Bremer Coaching.” In a split second every nuance of what was trying to be communicated to me amidst those three words rushed through my consciousness as if someone sat me down and said it word for word.
For an entire year I’ve been trying to force my coaching and my Akashic Records readings to exist under the umbrella of my LLC called Field Work. One business that holds both of my passions.
It has not worked. Rather, I’ve successfully gained coaching clients and I’ve successfully done Akashic Records readings, as well as create the School of Records and complete the first cohort with much interest in furthering their studies. However, I have not been successful in blending the two, and making it financially stable for me, and for the life of me I could not see that maybe blended they did not want to be.
It was clear that day on the floor that I was being told to let Field Work be Field work, where I work with people in the Akashic Records, and to create Jenny Bremer Coaching so that coaching could be the separate business entity that it wants to be.
It seems so simple that it’s silly that it took me a year to realize. In my mind, it was Field Work or nothing at all. Reality was trying to tell me that in between those two options, infinite possibility exists.
Now I feel a lot more space and expansion in my body. I have so many clear actionable steps to take now, whereas before all I knew to do was lay my ass of the floor and pretend I didn’t see the dust bunnies under the bookcase.
Just kidding, I immediately got up and vacuumed them.
If you’ve been following Field Notes for a while, you’ve had a pretty intimate view of my life’s path over the last few years. From quitting my job in search of magic (in hindsight I can say maybe don’t do that one), to moving north without a job, to totaling my car my first night there, to learning how to be single and stable, to now being a director of operations with a budding community, lovely partner, a Jeep adventure mobile, suddenly two businesses on my hands, and so much more.
I’ve gone back and forth about whether or not to share this revelation, or to keep it close to me. I’m learning to value privacy in a whole new capacity these days. But I also think that we as humans universally experience similar concepts, just in our own unique and authentic capacity. That there are invisible threads that connect my experience to yours, even if the circumstance looks different. May we all feel a little bit less alone by the end of these collected words.
I have spent so much time beating myself up for not being able to make Field Work work in the only way I was allowing myself to see it. I felt at a stalemate between me and it. So I threw up the white flag and retreated to my area rug.
In that retreat, I found surrender to be an accomplice. Often, letting go of control feels aimless and I can sometimes feel my energy scatter. Not knowing what to do, therefore not doing anything at all. It often leaves me feeling defeated, lazy, and as if I am being left behind by everyone else on their rocket ship of success. Except when I really zoom out, we’re not on rocket ships at all. It’s more like we are all in our own handmade canoes navigating an unpredictable ocean together.
As the waves begin to settle a bit in the cove I’ve found myself in, the relationship I’m building with time is realized. Despite only being 37 years old, yet feeling closer to 20-25, the older I get the less time I feel I have. I agonize over whether I’m doing the right things, with the right people, in the right places, in the right amount of time. What am I missing? What am I overlooking? How can I see, and do, and be, and feel it all? To be on my death bed and feel I’ve wasted any of said time…well, that’s just not how I want to go.
Time, I realize, is not something to fight against. This imaginary race I’m doing with time to stay ahead of it, to squeeze all of my desire in before the last grain of sand falls in the hourglass; it’s all wrong. In that attempt, I’m actually suffering.
Time is my guide. It’s my companion in this ever-evolving single now moment that I have. Timing has a knowing I simply do not. Nor do I understand it. Despite all of my efforts, nothing has happened as a result of my attempt to manipulate time. Forcing, pushing, rushing, trying with all my might; exhaustion and defeat are what I am left with. And though I don’t believe that blocks me from where I’m trying to go, it does prevent me from getting there any faster or getting there at a reasonable rate.
When I take a moment, and I breathe, and I look around, a knowing returns to me that I have everything I need. I may not have or be everything I want, but DAMN, there is already so much here. And I’ve done and been so many things to get here. And I see every version of myself that got me here in a loving and compassionate light, almost as if they’re congregating like Knights of the round table. Here we all are, in the glory of the now moment where we all worked together to get us there safely, and undoubtedly amidst a grand, daring, and bold adventure.
My attachment to a linear path cuts me off to all of my magic. The magic of listening, my relationship to my intuition, my ability to play with reality rather than be a victim to it. Magic that actually gives me a knowingness amidst the grander ocean of unknown. When I let go, and open myself to not only timing and the unknown, magic flows. I suddenly have an extra oar, a compass, a life vest if I need it, and by God: SNACKS.
With these Floor Revelations (is that the name of my future memoir?) I have by no means “arrived.” While I have these waves of messages and clarity, they’re just clues on my treasure map. They’re not “X” marking the spot. But they’re reminders of how joyful and clear and expansive I can be if I’d just get the hell out of my own way. If I find joy in the process, trusting that Time and the Process and Surrender are also in full trust of me.
And most peculiarly, sometimes the things I feel guided to do don’t always feel directly related to what I’m working toward. But it doesn’t need to make sense. It’s not supposed to. If we knew the “why” or “how” for everything, well that would reduce the turmoil of being alive wouldn’t be very fun now would it?
Sometimes you just need to lay on the floor.
Tallyho,
Jenny