This word, unleashed, has truly sunk itself into me. I’ve been allowing it to swirl around within me as I feel it out and explore what it means, to me and to the rest of the world.
When I started searching out in the world wide web about the concept of women and becoming unleashed, I found a lot about the importance of becoming unleashed. How we need to do it. How we need to break free, live our life for ourselves, live by our own rules.
I agree with this sentiment whole-heartedly.
However, there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot out there to actually help with processing those early feelings of what it is to become unleashed. You know, the fear, the shame, all those stories about how you are too much and not enough.
There seems to be this sentiment that once you decide you want to be “unleashed” (as in, once you see the error of your ways), then, just like that, you can do different. You can choose different.
(The word choice is thrown out there a lot. I have a lot of issues with this word and what it means and the reality of living in a white supremacist patriarchal rape culture and how some people do actually have “choice” but others most certainly do not, at least not if they want to survive. That is a post for another day however).
Here’s a thing though: These stories of our culture, the stories of how we are too much, how we are not enough, how we don’t matter, how we are broken and need to “fixed,” they run deep. And becoming aware of them is only the first step in being able to do and be different. An important step, yes, and yet only the first of many.
Becoming self aware is a process. Shifting into different ways of being and doing takes time and mindful and intentional effort.
As we become more aware of the stories that run through us, how we have bought into them and how we have perpetuated them, a lot of reactions get stirred up.
Anger.
Grief.
Frustration.
Sadness.
Some more anger.
And while we now know different, now we see the stories and how they impact us; while we want to choose and live differently; there is a lot of unraveling and processing that needs to happen.
There doesn’t seem to be a lot of space given to this processing.
It seems the idea is once you know a thing, you immediately can do a different thing.
And while this may be true in some ways, there are layers and layers and layers to these stories and things.
We need to make space for all the emotions that start to bubble up and boil over.
We need to be allowed to feel them, to look at them, to sort through them.
To process them.
To understand them. Their impact.
How the stuffing and not feeling has truly harmed us.
To heal those wounds too.
These stories run deep. They can’t be healed in the snap of a finger or because we just made the decision to do so.
It takes time.
Sometimes years. Decades. The whole rest of your life.
I don’t promise “results” in any of my work. For one, I’m not “results” oriented as I believe if we focus on the “results” of connecting to our body and spirit and mind in the here and now, it in many ways defeats the purpose and actually increases our anxiety and feelings of shame, not being enough and being too much. Because “results” are in the future and “results” indicate that you aren’t just fine as you are right now.
I do promise a safe space to process these stories. To unearth them and unpack them. To talk about them. To explore all the ways they impact you. A space to feel and sort through all the rage and grief that gets stirred up as you unpack it all. A space to move at your pace, forward and back and sideways and diagonally and up and down, as you need, for your process. A space for you to be accepted, just as you are, with no expectations or plans for you to be “better” or to “fix” you. A space for you to be, to process, to connect to you, your body, your own innate knowing.
This work is not a straight line where you start here and if you x, y and z you will end over here.
It is a windy, twisty path. It is not prescribed and the steps each person takes are unique. And often it feels and looks and is a lot like one step forward, ten steps back.
I’m here to tell you, this is okay.
Becoming “unleashed” isn’t a simple thing of “Now you know different, you can now do different.” It is about seeing different and knowing there are other possibilities and ways of being. It is about seeing our cultural lies for what they are. It is about learning, slowly and quickly, how to trust our Self again.
And about exploring and allowing and processing all the rage and grief and every other emotion that comes along with all the learning and unlearning.
I am here to guide you and support you in your unleashing, if you like. In your own path back to your embodied knowing. Or if you need other resources, I will do my best to find those for you too.
Because your path to becoming and being unleashed is yours. To be taken in your time. At your pace. With the people you want beside you. And all of this can change, as you need and want it to.
This is your life, your journey.
And I am here to support you, when and if you like.
xoxo
I am offering a free 7-day intensive circle in mid-July. We’ll be tapping into this idea of becoming unleashed, what it means to be leashed, the stories that tie us down. It won’t heal you. It won’t make all your stories of being too much or not enough magically disappear. It is an opportunity to meet other women who want to explore their own stories of being leashed and becoming unleashed. It is an opportunity to get a taste of what it can be like to work with me. It is an opportunity to explore different ways of connecting to you and your stories. If you’d like to learn more and register, you can click right here. xoxo