Category: being & becoming

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On being vulnerable

Part of my work with women involves encouraging them to be seen. There is Glow Friday  in my Facebook groups and on Instagram, where each Friday I invite my tribe to post selfies and share just where each of them are in their day or week or life. It has been both an amazing way for the women to connect with each other and to step forward into their own vulnerability and be seen and witnessed and accepted right where they are. The Glow Friday posts aren’t always glowing or happy; we’ve shared our grief and frustration and fear in those posts – and it is in these posts that I am most proud of the circles that have gathered around my work. These posts where my tribe shares their darker sides are the ones that pull the rest of the women forward – support and love is showered and there are always “me toos” and as each woman allows parts of her Shadow side to be seen, she learns, in her bones, in her very being, how not alone she is.

I model this vulnerability for my tribe, too. My Glow Friday posts aren’t always sunshine and sausages. I don’t save this vulnerability for Fridays either; most mornings I write a stream of conscious instagram post (ala Liberated Lines), sharing where I am in those first moments (or the first moments I can sit and write more than three words) of my day. It’s often an image of my coffee or the house or one of the kids, and in sharing these different images of my life and mornings, the world gets to see just how messy things can be for me. Sometimes these posts are filled with love and joy and sometimes they are not. And sometimes they start in a tired or frustrated tone and then by the end I have found my breath and my center and can come from a more positive space.

It can be challenging to be constantly “putting myself out there.” I’m an introvert. A very social introvert, and an introvert all the same. I need quiet and space to energize myself and when I share parts of my life or my soul (and let’s be honest, my work is both) with the world I can feel awkward and needing to retreat. I’ve learned my own dance of showing my face and then hiding it and it has become smoother through the years and through my own work. Along with this has been learning to set boundaries, to say no, to say yes, to schedule quiet. I love connecting to people and sharing our stories and afterward I need the time to let it all settle into me.

Many of my tribe are like this also.

One woman asked me if I ever felt scared sharing myself or my work (I’m paraphrasing). I told her of course I do. And this is my work. If I am to guide others to standing in their own light, to setting their own boundaries, to shedding masks and shame and being seen for who they truly are – then I damn well need to do the same.  It does get easier with time and practice. And still there are days when the Shadows come out and want to dance and so we dance and I soothe my Self, my shadow and my light.

This is what I guide women to. To being comfortable in our own skin. To not apologizing for who we are. To no longer feeling shame. To feeling bold and proud and wild and to a large degree not caring what others think (and to realizing that really, most people don’t think about us and our shenanigans at all).

I love my work. It challenges and pushes me. This year is about expansion, and I am doing that. Expanding my comfort zone by constantly stepping outside of it. And to do this, I must be brave and vulnerable and dance with my shadows and fears. I must care for and nourish my whole self: body, mind and spirit. What I want for my tribe I make sure I give to myself. And so with each day, because of my work, I too grow and shift and sift and transform and learn more about being in the here and  now, in my body, in my spirit.

 

If you have not signed up for my weekly newsletter yet, I invite you to do so now. In it I share my thoughts on different parts of my work as well as offer a guided meditation link, stream of conscious writing prompts, links to articles I found interesting and to my latest blog posts. I am also offering a free mini-course, A Gift, for signing up. A Gift will give you a taste of the work I do both in groups and 1:1. You can receive it by filling out this short form. xoxo.

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Ancestral Stories

Last week I guided over a hundred women in exploring our power and strength, connecting to our bodies, excavating our stories and digging into who we truly are. It was an intense week and fast paced and rich with ways to dive into our depths. And even with this being true, I have been left feeling like we barely skimmed the surface of this work, that we barely dipped our toes is. That there is so much richness  in this work of power and strength for us all to uncover, to become curious about.

During our week we touched on the stories of our mothers. We spent one day of thinking about and connecting to what our mothers brought to us. That day is still lingering within me, simmering. This digging into their stories reminds me again how the more we each know of our own history the more we can make sense of our Self. We can’t ignore the past. The women and men who came before us made us, both metaphorically and literally. Pretending that what they lived has no impact on us only puts up another block for us to overcome to get to our own core and true, whole Self.

Sometimes though we don’t have a way to learn the stories; the people who held them had died or we aren’t in contact or they simply don’t want to share them. And it feels like then the stories are lost, and a part of our Self is lost with them. How can we know the experience of our great-great-great-great-grandmother? How can we know how her children felt? How she felt about motherhood? What her internal struggles were with loving and being loved?

We can begin with our own stories. The ones that live in our heads, real and imagined. We can begin with our own struggles and how motherhood affects us or our relationship with our own mother. We can begin with how we embrace or avoid loving and being loved.

Because all those stories that we have, they didn’t start with us. Our struggles with living and loving and being didn’t begin with our birth. They all began a long time ago, with women we never met and yet are as much a part of us as we are part of our children. We are made of their DNA and with that comes the stories and struggles and sadness and joy of their lived experiences.

So we begin understanding our ancestral stories by beginning to understand our own. By acknowledging the stories we hold. By exploring all those shoulds and have-tos and fears. By examining our daily struggles and getting curious about them. By knowing that we are not the first or the last in our line to experience life as we do, our trials and strife are our threads to our past, to understanding, to embracing our own embodied knowing.

We may never know the specific literal details of the lives of the women who came before us. And we can imagine their internal experiences, the stories that swirled within them, by understanding our own internal stories.

How will you connect with your stories? With the gifts and non-gifts the women before you handed down? Are you ready to dig into who you are, what you are made of, literally and figuratively? Are you ready to grow your mermaid tail and dive to your own depths?

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

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Snow, roots and getting cozy

It snowed today. It rarely snows here in the greater Seattle area, maybe once or twice a year and it sticks even less often than that–maybe every couple years. But it snowed today, big fluffy flakes that slowly fell down to the earth, where they melted and continued their journey down, down, down, into the grass and dirt and asphalt.

I have been pining away for snow. Growing up in eastern Washington we had snow every winter, tons of snow. So much snow that by the time I left my hometown at 18 I truly was done with snow and never wanted to live in it again. Now here I am at 44 aching for the snow, it’s brightness, it’s sparkle, it’s still crispness. I got a taste when we went over the mountains for Christmas, and now here I am, back on the west side of the state, looking at these big fluffy flakes falling down and disappearing and longing even more to the quietness that envelopes a city with a fresh fallen snow.

Looking back at those early years of my life I believe I spent the whole time plotting how I would leave that town of my birth. I felt trapped there, a wild animal caged, and the day I left for college couldn’t come fast enough. When I was five, yes five, I told my mother that I would live in Seattle when I grew up and once I arrived here I assumed that this is where I would spend the end of the my days. This town has fit me like a second skin for over twenty years. I grew up here in so many ways, spending my 20s and 30s here. My entire courtship with my husband was here. The births of our two children were here. I have met most of my best-adult friends here (and many of them have already moved away). I have drunk too much and danced so hard and pushed my life to its fullest in this town. I have lived, and learned to live fully, here.

And sometimes the things we think will be our second skins our entire lives become uncomfortable. Ill fitting. Scratchy. What was once exactly as it should be suddenly feels out of place and all wrong.

This is true for many of us. We live in our stories and they fit so well, for so long, and then suddenly they don’t. This can sometimes leave us feeling lost and discombobulated. We feel the discomfort of ill-fitting skin and yet we aren’t quite sure we are ready to shed it, to allow the next layer to come forward. Yet, eventually, sometimes with a little or a lot of work, it does.

Every year I look back and see how far I have come. How my friends and family have grown. How life shifts and sifts. I am not the person today I was a year ago and that person is different from the one the year before that. I can see my own unfolding, as we all can, looking back and find comfort in the knowing that we won’t always be where we are in this moment.

Sometimes we grow weary of the snow and the cold. And then, at other points in our lives, it is all we want. This is more than the wanting of what we do not have, it is speaking of how we grow and change as do our tastes and priorities. As we do the work of shedding our skins, our layers, of getting to the core of who we truly are and truly want to be, we find we are able to go back to our roots, whole.

And maybe that is the point. Going home, for so many, is about going where we need to wear masks, where we can’t allow our Self to be seen, where we feel unacceptable and unlovable. But that’s not what home is supposed to be, is it? Home is supposed to be safe, where we are loved unconditionally, where we feel cozy and good and whole in our own skin.

Maybe I haven’t been able to feel at home in the town I was born in because I didn’t feel at home with my Self. And as that has shifted and sifted, the calling to go back to my roots is strong and necessary and wanted.

What does it feel like for you to go back to your roots? To visit the place or the people you grew up with? Do you feel uncomfortable, unable to be you? And if so, how is this true when you aren’t “back home”? How can you find ways to be comfortable in your own skin, even when you go back to your roots?

My own journey has been long and windy, as most life journeys are. And part of coming home to me, to getting cozy and comfortable in my own skin, has been in exploring all the stories that are floating in my blood and muscles and mind. The stories about worth and value and lovable-ness. The stories of who I should be and how I should act and how “young ladies” are to be in the world and who I can be when I grow up. The stories of powerlessness and victimhood and smiling and nodding and grinning and bearing it. All those shoulds and have-tos, floating around in each of us, passed down to from our mothers and grandmothers and great-grandmothers and on up the line. The same shoulds and have-tos that we pass down to our daughters and granddaughters and nieces if we don’t bring them into our awareness and consciously and mindfully expose them and change them.

This work started before the conception of my daughter, and yet her existence, while even still in my womb, brought this work to the forefront. I wanted different for her. And I still do. And now, I want different for me too. And for the young boy I am raising. And for my friends. And for all of us.

I want us each to shed all these “shoulds” and “have-tos” and get into the truth of who we are and how we want to be in this world. I want all of us to feel comfortable in our own skin. To be able to enjoy the snow again. To feel safe and lovable and at home when we visit our roots.

This is my New Years wish for the world, for my family, for me. What is yours?

 

shedding shoulds 2016
Join me for 30-days of diving deep into all those stories that hold you back from being the person you were born to be. For more details and to register go to http://gwynnraimondi.com/shedding-shoulds or click on the Shedding Shoulds tab at the top of the page.
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Connection, Community, Expansion

I’ve been quiet here on the blog for the last couple weeks, after promising myself that I would write something at least twice a week. That seems to be how it goes: I swear to myself I will write here and then I have shift in focus and direction that leaves me not writing. Oftentimes not-writing leaves me feeling disconnected, a bit off kilter. This isn’t true of this most recent break from the blog.

In fact, I feel very connected. I have been reaching out more to my circles, the ones I participate in and the ones I lead. I have been broadcasting on Periscope and I have to say I really love the forum. I’ve also been connecting more with my alumni group and the Mindful Mantras group. I’ve also been more transparent with the (Un)Becoming circle as I do this work along side them at the same time I guide them through it. I have been searching for new ways to connect with women who are ready to dig into who they are, who are ready to explore and release the stories that have held them back for years. I’m uncovering ways I can connect more with the circles that have already gathered around my work.

I’m offering individual therapy and guide work sessions to new clients as well as those who have participated in the deeper soul work of Shedding Shoulds, Being & Becoming and the (Un)Becoming Quest. I’m brain-storming all the ways I can grow these circles, help more women and families, and expand the rebellious practices of body-centered mindfulness, self-awareness, and loving-kindness.

I’m reaching out. I’m stepping further into my core values of authenticity, transparency, connection, play and curiosity. I’m growing relationships.

Looking back over these first three years of my business, of my work with women to guide them to let go of stories that don’t fit, to deeply connect with their bodies and spirit, I see how I have held back. There were so many stories centered around fear and shoulds and scarcity. And what I have come to deeply realize over the last few weeks, and truly these are revelations born over the last month, is that those stories are bullshit.

Giving to others does not mean less for me. In fact, it means more: more creativity, more play and more curiosity.

Giving of myself does not mean less for me. In fact, it means more: stronger connections, deeper relationships, greater expansion of loving-kindness.

Being seen does not mean being ridiculed (well, not always and when it does that is no reason to hide; in fact it’s all the more reason to be seen, to guide others to break through their own fear, to model what it is to be vulnerable and authentic and do the work we are meant to do).

Being true to who I am and how I want to be in the world does not make me selfish or self-centered. In fact it means being more authentic, transparent, honest and real.

I’ve been looking ahead to 2016 and who I want to be and what I want to do. The words expand and expansion have found me and will be guiding me through the turn of the year. They will guide me until a new word comes to find me. They will join the words that have found me in years past: connect, release, soften.

I’m stepping further into my vulnerability by being seen more: on Periscope, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. I am allowing the truth of who I am to be and releasing any shame I’ve had around it in years past. I am deeply committed to connecting more with my circles and my work. I am committed both to offering my work as a gift and allowing my work to financially support me. I’m shifting further into my being, into this next iteration of my becoming.

And so I don’t know how this blog will play a role. I hope to write and connect here once a week, because I do love this forum of writing out my thoughts. And I also want to focus on expanding what I do in this world and who I connect with. I want those connections to be deeper and more of a dialogue than a monologue.

Because that is what is truly important to me: building community  and connections while guiding others to deeper understanding of and connection to their own Self which in turns leads me to a deeper understanding of my own Self, which then allows me to guide others deeper and so the snowball grows.

As we approach Thanksgiving here in the States, I am reflecting on all I am grateful for: my home, my family—nuclear, extended and chosen; my clients who allow me to hold space for them as they process their grief and family transitions; and the women who allow me to guide them into deeper knowing of themselves. I am deeply grateful for community in all its forms as I look forward to expanding connections in the months and years to come.

As part of my expansion and searching for ways to connect more, I am offering a free webinar on Tuesday, November 24, where we will discuss self-care, self-love and how to move past the stories that stop us from getting them. You can register to join us here.

Sacred Self will begin in a little over a week and currently has a 36% discount for those who sign up with a friend. You can learn more about this three-week online retreat here.

I look forward to connecting with you as 2015 comes to a close and 2016 is born. May we all enjoy connection, release, softness and expansion in the year to come.

A portion of my intuitive collage board for 2016. I knew it was time to focus on connection and community before I fully knew it was time. ;)
A portion of my intuitive collage board for 2016. I knew it was time to focus on connection and community before I fully knew it was time. 😉
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Nourishing from the outside in

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.