Gwynn Raimondi, MA

Secular Blessing for Becoming Unleashed 2018

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The work of a lifetime, the process of individuation, is widening of that spotlight so much that everything is illuminated and you are conscious of and can see your All.

~Sera J. Beak, The Red Book: A Deliciously Unorthodox Approach to Igniting Your Divine Spark

May we…

Unravel our stories of not enough, seeing in them the lies we have been told that have nothing to do with us.

Revolt against the idea that comfort at any and all costs is necessary for our survival

Dismantle the shame we carry in our bones and being

Embrace our beauty, our power, our voice

Realize we no longer need to compromise our integrity, our values, our love for our Self, in order to be loved by another

Release the tales of how we are too much and allow them to scatter on the wind like so much dust

Reclaim our birthrights of respect, honor, and real, honest, and mature love.

Learn to be accepting of the in-between spaces and unknowns as we move through this work, through our lives, through this world.

Find the ways of being that strong, resilient, soft, and loving that have always lived inside us.

Amen.

…

There is still time to join the Becoming Unleashed Circle 2018.  Registration will close at 10pm PDT Monday October 1.  To learn more and register you can go to http://gwynnraimondi.com/becomingunleashedcircle .

In case you missed the essays exploring the topics and ideas we’ll be examining in this circle, you can find them at the links below:

The Impacts of Inter-generational & Cultural Relational Traumas

Releasing our stories of too much, not enough, & shame

The Goo: A time of Renewal, Restructuring, Re-evolving

Reclaiming our power, strength, & daring 

Why the Becoming Unleashed circle?

The essence of Becoming Unleashed

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) 

Releasing our stories of too much, not enough, & shame

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You cannot let go of anything if you cannot notice you are holding it.  ~Neale Donald Walsch

Letting go helps us live in a more peaceful state of mind and helps restore our balance. It allows others to be responsible for themselves and for us to take our hands off situations that do not belong to us. This frees us from unnecessary stress. ~Melody Beattie

We are all of us stars, and we deserve to twinkle. ~Marilyn Monroe

Last week I shared with you where these stories of being too much and not enough and the shame we carry originates.  Not a one of us were born with these stories, and yet they seep into our skin, bones, and sinew and impact the ways we are in the world and with ourselves.

Here’s a thing though: we don’t have to hold onto these narratives.  We don’t have to allow the shame to continue coursing through our being.  We can do the work of release, renewal, and reclamation – over time, with patience, practice, and self-compassion. It is work that is done in layers, over and over throughout our lifetimes.  It is work that is perhaps never actually done, and yet the more we are able to move through the process the more we are able to move ourselves from a space of living only to survive and into a place of living to thrive.

As I mentioned last week, naming the narratives is a vital first step in this work.  Until we name those stories that spin through our heads, and consider where they came from, we can never move into the work.  After we name the narratives and realize they are not our own but were given to us by our families and culture, we can move into the space of release.

Release does not happen over night.  It does not happen simply  because we think it or wish it.  It requires intention, ritual, practice.  It requires patience, self-compassion, and time. It requires a deep, visceral understanding that these stories are not yours to carry.

A truth is we can know, logically, in our minds that these stories are not ours; that they are not actually true; that they have little to actually do with us, individually and everything to do with us collectively.  However, knowing in our minds is not the same as deeply knowing in our bodies, in our core being.

To move from a mind knowing to a body knowing means… you guessed it… coming home into our bodies, finding where those stories live in our muscles and cells, and inviting them to leave, allowing for an openness to be where these stories once lived.

Coming into our bodies and releasing these stories that affect us in so many ways, is challenging work.  It is uncomfortable in the beginning.  And yet the shifts that come from this work can be amazing.

When we intentionally do the work of acknowledging those stories that do nothing more than cause us harm, we are able to begin to move into new ways of being with ourselves and others. This new way of being takes time to integrate into our bodies, minds, and spirit.  It requires space for shifting which means that we need to learn to tolerate that sense of openness, that may mistakenly feel like emptiness, so our new ways of being can take root and grow.  (More on this next week.  Stay tuned.)

I talk about these ideas in the 9-minute video below.

This essay is the second of a four part series I have written exploring our narratives of too much, not enough, the shame we carry and how we can release them and reclaim our own strength, power, and daring.  I hope you find it helpful and informative.

This essay series is also to introduce the themes we will be exploring in the fall online women’s circle Becoming Unleashed.  We begin October 1 and space is limited to six women.  You can learn more here.

Links to other essays in this series:

The Impacts of Inter-generational & Cultural Relational Traumas

Releasing our stories of too much, not enough, & shame (this essay)

The Goo: A time of Renewal, Restructuring, Re-evolving 

Reclaiming our power, strength, & daring

Where I live

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where-i-liveI live in the in-betweens, those back alleys that aren’t really a place of their own but clearly have who we were at one end and who we will become on the other.  While looking back everything is relatively clear, distinct, sharp, looking forward is often filled with fog, hazy, not clear.

I live, physically, in a small apartment with my kids and husband.  It too is an in-between space, where we landed as we figured out our next steps. Now we are here, waiting and doing what we need to move onto our next planned step, not knowing what will come our way to change our course and seeing clearly all the choices we made and didn’t make that brought us to this space now.

These in-between spaces are my life.  The older I become the more I know, deep in my bones that these in-betweens, these back alleys that lead us into our next ways of being, our next iterations, our next phases of life, are life itself.  Those unseen destinations ahead of us are often mirages that shape-shift with our whims and choices and non-choices and with the wind and with things far beyond our knowing or control.

These liminal spaces were once terrifying to me.  My need for plans, for knowing, for having the false sense of control and safety was strong.  I lacked resilience and would fall to pieces if the slightest thing went seemingly off track.  It would take days or weeks for me to recover and even in the recovery of the disappointment or frustration there lived a deep resentment and deeper fear of the fallout of things not having gone “my way.”

In time I learned the value in having fall back plans.  This brought comfort in that if Plan A didn’t work out exactly I still had plans B-ZZZZZ to work through.  These fall back plans were my safety nets.  They both helped me learn to build resilience and also stunted my resilience.  I still needed control.  I still feared the unknown.  I still could not bear the dissonance of the in-between spaces.

I’m not entirely sure I can pinpoint when it all changed.  When these in-between spaces, when these gates into the Underworld, began to feel like home.  When my resilience grew back wholly and completely.  I can not tell you the date or the exact steps I took to land here.  I know part of it was coming into my body.  I know part of it was seeing an amazing therapist (or three).  I know part of it was becoming a mother and wanting more and better and different for my child.  I know part of it was the reading of All The Books and getting my own degree in psychology.  I know part of it is simply growing older and no longer having any fucks to give.

Here I am.  I have been walking with Inanna for years now, going down into the Underworld, learning to sit in the discomfort of my own grief and trauma, learning to hold space for others to do the same.  With each descent and ascent more layers come off and I leave more of my masks and armor and distracting baubles behind.

I live in my body.  In her very real liminal space, moving from motherhood into cronehood.  Shifting and softening.  Creaking and popping more than in years past, and even with the pains and aches that are new to me now, I feel more comfortable and at home in her than ever before.  The anger and resentment and sense of betrayal that I once had for her feels like a distant memory and I almost question if I ever hated my body at all.

Almost question.  Because I know.  I know I hated her.  I hated her softness and curves.  I hated how she drew attention from some people but not from others.  I hated how she felt weak and defenseless against the world, against men who only wanted to take her and use and then discard her like a piece of trash.

I know I resented her.  I resented all her limitations.  I resented how she “turned on” me, how she wouldn’t bend or sway or stand or leap or run or punch or kick in the ways other bodies did.  I resented how she was built and what all that meant.  I resented her nature and naturalness.  I resented how she was a target for pain and beatings from those who were supposed to love me.  I resented how she just kept taking it, kept going on, wouldn’t stop.  I resented my body’s resilience with all my mind.  I resented her because I could not understand her need to survive or keep going or keep living, even in the worst and most torturous of circumstances.

I know I felt betrayed by her.  Again and again.  Becoming pregnant when I didn’t want her to and then becoming infertile when I desperately wanted another child.  I felt betrayed by her “unspecified” diagnosis and how there was no clear or straight path to fix her, according to the myriad of doctors who poked and prodded and cut and then sewed her back up. I felt betrayed again by her curves and the attention they received, both “positive” and less “positive.” I felt betrayed by her sicknesses.  I felt betrayed that she wouldn’t do exactly what I wanted her to do when I wanted her to do it.

I lived in that space for a long time.  The hatred and resentment and betrayal almost ate me alive.

And here I am.  From where I am now that all feels so very long ago.  Though I know it wasn’t.

Here I am now. Now, I love my body.  I revere and respect her.  I am honored and humbled and so deeply grateful that despite me she kept going.  I am amazed at all she has endured and grateful that she has held these stories and truths about the experiences that made me in a safe space until I was ready to know them.

I am at home in her.  At home in the pleasures and pains of her.  At home in the discomforts and comforts.  At home in what she is right now. At home with the aging body she is becoming.

This is where I live.  In my body.

In this amazing body that has endured tortures and pleasures.  In this amazing body that keeps going despite all my past attempts to stop her.  In this amazing body that has given me two beautiful living children.  In this amazing body that is shifting and moving in her own ways.  In this amazing body that holds both my stories and the stories of my ancestors.  In this amazing body that knows.

I live at home. In this body. In the liminal spaces of life.  In this tiny apartment that keeps us warm and safe and dry.

I live at home. In my freedom and unapologeticness and strength and power and daring and light and wholeness and knowing.

I live at home in my being and becoming the Unleashed Woman who my body held and nurtured and kept safe and brave through all our years.

I live at home in me.

xoxo

Did you enjoy this? If so, I invite you to subscribe to my weekly love letter right over here.

Today’s post was inspired by two different writing and exploration courses.  One by Jena Schwartz and the other by Isabel Abbott and Bronwyn Petry.  I encourage you to explore their work and see if any of their future offerings are right for you. xoox

 

 

Nourishing from the outside in

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I write a lot about the (Un)Becoming circle. In part because that is where most of my working focus is right now, in part because I am amazed daily by the beauty of the women in the circle and in part because of my own transformation in guiding and doing this work. It is intense, yes. Each of us has resistance along the way. Each of us come in and out of the work, at our own natural ebb and flow. And there is an energy connecting the women that is indescribable.

What has struck me the most is how each of us have transformed in our self-love and self-care practices. I believe this transformation is in part because of the focus I put on self-care as a guide and  in the circle, and also it’s something more. Each of the women are finding their worth, their value in this world. Each are starting to respect themselves in deeper ways. Each are learning the art and science of allowing themselves to be.

This is where the nourishment is: in the being; in the allowing. Yes, it’s in the cup of tea or glass of wine or long hot bath or even in the taking a moment to breath. And yet true nourishment isn’t in the doing of these practices at all. It is in the honoring that you are worth the time of these practices. It is in the giving yourself the respect that you deserve. It is in embodying the truth of your own worth and value. It is in the knowing when it is time to be quiet and allow things to settle within and then in the allowing and being.

Nourishment lives not in the doing. It lives in the being.

So how do we make the shift from the doing to the being? The irony is that we need to start doing the practices to encourage the ideas and feelings and knowing of our own worth to come back out into being. We start to shift when we mindfully and intentionally take the time to love ourselves up, whether that be in a 60-second breath exercise or in a 60-minute massage. As we intentionally do and explore these self-love practices, a shift starts to happen within: we start to allow for the being in these moments; and as our practices expand, the being expands beyond those moments of intentional and scheduled self-love and starts to grow into our daily life, our normal way of living in the world. With time the doing exercises can drop off from being done daily and can instead live within us, to be drawn upon when needed.

This shifting is what my work is about. This learning of moving from the mindlessly doing to the mindfully doing; and then from the mindfully and intentionally doing to the simply being. This shifting doesn’t happen overnight, it isn’t instantaneous, and yet with time and practice and beginning again and again, it does happen. I have watched the women in my circles make amazing shifts in a matter of weeks, even greater shifts in a few months. It always leaves me awestruck when they start to make connections and shifts and then when the being starts, holy wow!

I have witnessed these shifts within myself also. I started my body-centered mindfulness practice with the sole intention of not yelling at my daughter so much and trying and connect with her more. That was it: I wanted a better relationship with my kid. With time I did yell less and then I noticed other shifts in me, in my attitude about our home, my connection to my husband and then the biggest surprise was the deeper connection to my body and feeling more comfortable in my skin and in the world. The shifting has continued on to connecting more deeply to my own embodied knowing and and finding re-connection to my feminine self and to the sacred and Divine. I know these shifts and transformations will continue, and each time I am left in awe and gratitude for this work, both in solitude and in community.

Want to learn more? You can subscribe to my weekly love letter right here. 

 

 

 

Honoring your Self

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For the last two years I have provided a free offering called Mindful Mantras, where each Sunday I send out a word or short phrase for the recipients to focus on during the week. I set up the emails each December, all 52 for the year, so that when I receive the Sunday prompt it’s a surprise for me too. I’m almost always amazed how those weekly words fit into my life and how they really do help give me focus. And it never fails that when I start to think I won’t offer the emails again the following year I start getting emails from other recipients telling me how much those single words and short phrases really help them.

I am reminded why I do this work. More importantly I am reminded that I simply need to do the work. It doesn’t matter if any one else appreciates it. And still, it is nice to get notes that say “What you do matters.”

I notice that when I get into my ruts of feeling like what I do doesn’t matter, that I don’t matter, a couple of things are going on. First there is likely a huge shift occurring within me: a layer is about shed or a new one is about to be born; I am transitioning from one way of being to another and the discomfort and dis-ease of process has me questioning All The Things.

In these times of discomfort and dis-ease I am reminded of the need to care for me: to stop; to be; to rest; to replenish. In the Unbecoming Circle this week is our week of rest and I am reminding each of the women of the importance of stopping, of giving permission, of allowing. The importance of accepting our Self. Of being. Being worthy and deserving and enough. And mostly, our simple existence means we matter.

Each of us have gifts to offer this world. We may or may not have the honor of knowing what these gifts are. We may or may not have the privilege of knowing when these gifts have been received by others. We may or may not have “special” gifts. But each and every one us is a gift to this world. We each matter. With out our existence the world would be a little duller, a little less.

We are each Sacred. Often I meet women and men who treat others with so much love and respect and completely dishonor themselves. They would give the shirt off their backs to another person in need, but won’t even stop to give themselves a cup of tea to enjoy. I hear the excuse over and over of there not being enough time; there is too much to do; They need me more; They are The priority. And I almost always respond with, All The Things can’t wait for ten minutes?

Sometimes people have the idea that self-care means taking hours and hours out of your day to nourish and replenish. It can mean that. I think all of us would enjoy that. And yet, self-care can be done in ten minute or less snippets throughout the day. Six ten minute breaks gives you an hour, and while yes, having that full hour all at once would be better, six ten minute breaks during our busiest times is better than not giving ourselves the rest we deserve.

Those breaks give us, and our gifts to the world, the chance to replenish, the chance to nourish, the chance to breathe and be. Those breaks remind ourselves that we are important, worthy and sacred. Those breaks show others that we are important, worthy and sacred and give them the space to honor their own importance, worthiness and sacredness.

I remind the women in my circles, and I include me in this, that we deserve to be taken care of. We deserve the little breaks and the extra effort. We deserve to be loved and honored and respected. This honoring and respecting needs to begin from within. We need to see our own beauty. We need to acknowledge that we are important, even if we aren’t exactly sure what our gifts are. It’s not really our business to know how we are making the world a better place. It is only our business to know that we do; that our existence makes the world brighter, more beautiful, more loving.

Honor yourself today. Recognize the truth that you matter; you are worthy; you are sacred. Give yourself the love and respect you would, and do, give to others. For ten minutes. All The Things can wait, trust me.

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