Every time I send out a newsletter to my list, one person unsubscribes. When that notice comes through to my email, I smile. I’m always curious who it is and so always look. I’m send some loving thoughts to the email address that no longer wants to receive my love letters, and I wish them well. I thank them for allowing into their inbox for so long. And I nod to myself that I must be doing something right.
The truth is, I can’t, and don’t want to, please everyone. My love letters can sometimes be muddled and murky, sometimes crisp and clean; sometimes rambling, sometimes to the point. They are an expression of where and who I am in those moments. Part diary, part hey, what’s up, part love letter, to my readers and to myself. They document my skipping, running, walking and stumbling along this journey I’m on, this pilgrimage to each new iteration of me.
I acknowledge that my pilgrimage isn’t for everyone, and I’m grateful for that. The guide work I do is deep and intense, for me and those who allow me to guide them. I don’t want my energy going to those who don’t want it, or who aren’t ready for it. I want those who gather around my guide work to be ready to be… well to be guided into a deeper understanding of who they are, who they were and who they want to become.
This is not to say that every person who is ready for that deeper understanding would want me to be their guide. I get this and understand it. We cannot all be everything to everyone. If we stay true to who we are, the right people will start to gather. Our communities and circles will grow organically. None of this needs to be forced or demanded. It’s not about big numbers to me, it never has been. It’s about, has always been about, knowing exactly the right people will come forward at the right time, and the group that gathers around any particular program will have its own magic and feel.
…
So now I am in this place of curiosity about being female in a patriarchal society. I’m in this place of wanting to understand what it means to be a strong heroine in the fairy tales (like the show Once Upon A Time has re-written Snow White and others to be strong, warriors, independent, the true heroines of their own stories); what it means to be a super-heroine like Wonder Woman or better yet, Black Widow or Jean Grey. Women who have their own back stories, who weren’t always Super Heroines, who have had their own trials and struggles like all of us, and still are fighting for what is right, are still hoping to heal the world. Women who are strong and unapologetic in their femininity, who reject the rules that don’t fit them and allow themselves to be fully who they are. Women who have awakened to their own embodied knowing.
I have always been a rebel, in one way or another. I’ve written about it time and again, both here on the blog and in my love letters. I believe in screaming a firm fuck you to the status quo, in letting go and burning of all those shoulds and can’ts and definitions others place on us about what it means to be a woman or a mother or good girl or a bad girl. I firmly believe we need to shed our shame of who we are and embrace ourselves and each other. We need to stand together, accepting and celebrating our differences and our similarities, acknowledging that no two stories are exactly the same, but they are also so very, very much alike.
Another truth: we are all special snowflakes, and at the same time, none of us are.
So what does it mean to stumble on this pilgrimage of life, of being and becoming, of putting on our super heroine cape, to fail and succeed at becoming the people we are called to be? How many different capes and masks to do we wear, can we wear at once? And are they all us, each its own unique expression of who we are in each moment, in each setting? I don’t have all the answers right now, and I believe this is my quest, my exploration and excavation work for this year of being 43.
So more layers will shed and new ones will glow through, and more people will decide the pilgrimage I’m on isn’t for them, and more people will gather close and circle with me; this is the ebb and flow of life; this is part of what it means for each of us to be on a heroine’s journey, each of us finding our own way, in our own time and gathering together when our paths meet, at exactly the right time, exactly the right place.
Interested in receiving my twice monthly love letters in your inbox (and receive a free five day self-study course)? Simply click here and fill out the form.