while i rest…

I am back. I am here during a period of rest with wisdom to share. So much is happening, but it’s all good. I’m happy, I’m resting, and my nervous system feels at ease. I have time and I am not rushed to do anything. I’m also reading at leisure once again…that always satisfies my soul. The most prominent book I’ve been chipping away at is Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype. It’s beautiful and soulful. It is just what I need at the moment.

I am going through yet another transformation in life and learning to ingest it smoothly as an enriching learning experience rather than an inconvenience. I have spent much of my time in the past two years very focused on my career and also trying to balance the wild woman in me. In this struggle to balance, I felt like I was letting that wild woman die, and that made me feel angry and guilty. It was a betrayal of sorts, as if my spirit was no longer free. Schedules, rules, clients, bosses, meetings. Blah blah blah! Not to say that these things don’t matter, but essentially they do not if your soul feels captive. There must be a way to be that woman in those environments, right?

Initially, I fought. Hard. I rejected being structured and organized. A calendar? Nope. Planning? Umm nah, I just go with the flow. I even poked fun at those Type A folks. Weelll…here I am being all of those things. I still chuckle at the irony of being free spirited with a schedule. It seemed oxymoronic, but the reality is that you NEED to plan, schedule, and be organized to have more freedom! No kidding.

As I began adopting all of these vital traits, I felt like a little piece of wild me died, but it was for my own survival. I had made a huge environmental change with my job and boy did it require me to be all the things I rejected. So I thought I had it. I was fresh, ready, and proud of myself; ready to conquer the world! That faded quickly and it wasn’t because I failed at being organized or structured. It was because I was not cared for properly and I outgrew my environment. Maybe your mind is saying that I’m blaming, but I’m not. Keep reading.

I’m a gardener, so I’ll explain it as if I’m a plant. Imagine yourself with a seedling, planting it in the perfect spot. You’re handling it gently, resting it into the perfect spot, and packing dirt around the roots…channeling all of your hopes of growth into it. You read all the instructions, water it, pray for just enough sunshine and rain, and leave it be. You check on it a lot at first. Maybe everyday. You prune it, check for pests, sing to it, love on it. Then you begin to fade…you go out every few days. Life gets busy and you may go a whole week or two without checking on your plant. Uh oh, here comes the guilt. “I’m such a bad plant mama. I hope they are okay. I’ve ruined their chance to grow. What if they die?” Maybe you don’t feel guilty. Maybe you overcompensate for your guilt and say, “Oh nature takes care of itself. They don’t need me. It’s fine, they’re just plants…I can get more.” Ha. What if I told you that neither perspective was wrong? Could you be open enough to accept that two things can be true at the same time? Or that these thoughts are just words that we assign meaning to? The truth is, everything’s fine. The plants are either dead or alive and you can either get more or not.

So what was the point of the plant story? It was just to show how we ultimately lose integrity of our actions through our thought processes (language). We plant ourselves in spaces that seem favorable. We convince ourselves that we can thrive if we adopt certain traits or follow specific rules. We receive just enough reinforcement to know that what we do CAN work, and that keeps us going. The rules and traits aren’t useless, they just have a place. They are tools. Who we are at our core remains the same regardless of what we decide to do. If you know who you are, then you know when something no longer supports you or grows you. You know when time is up, but you often decide to fight it or hold on to it. Why? Because our mind tells us what to do instead of our souls. We ignore that primitive intuition. We degrade the wildness in us, but it is much more valuable than your intellect.

Here’s my advice if you’d like it. Let yourself go. Stop holding yourself captive in spaces that you don’t belong anymore. Know that you are always capable of taking care of yourself and it’s your sole responsibility to do so. Refrain from blaming anyone but yourself. You are your own accountability partner. What I’ve learned is that the wild woman in me has not gone anywhere. She was always there urging me to move on, to speak up, and keep living. She still is. I just listen more.