Our entire lives are just stories.
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“Our entire lives are just stories.”
- Lagertha, Vikings
One of her triggers, she admitted on social media, was other moms running businesses who had no kids. She started her business as a single mom. She spoke the truth that she struggled with judging them for what they could do without kids.
When I saw this I was shot in the gut with the truth of my trigger. Immediately I knew I held something similar. But it wasn't the no kid thing, it was the ONE kid thing.
When I was in school I met a lot of people, I was nursing my third born before class and after class, then running off to take the train to the city. The people I met and formed bonds with weren't mothers, I was older than many of them. I watched them jump onto shiny paths, launch big programs and travel the world. I knew they had a different freedom than I had and it would take me some time to fully identify my freedom.
But that one kid thing, I had that one in me. You only have ONE kid, of course you can _________ _______________ blah blah.
Ouch. Sometimes it hurts to feel our own judgements. Speaking them aloud is powerful medicine.
Dave calls it keeping score; when we get into it, and one of us goes into a speech about who does more or how it was in the past rather than being in the present. It makes me cringe. Both him saying it and the fact that there are times I do it.
The other day I took our youngest to his football game. I never know what the score is and I have no idea what they are doing on the field. I love watching them play. I love when I see the joy and the fear all mashed up.
I don't get sports. I don't have that part of my brain turned on to make any sense of it.
I asked him what the score was, and he said, "I don't know maybe it 12 to 24 or maybe it was 6 to 30..."
Maybe this isn't the popular opinion, but I love that this eleven year old didn't know the score. At least not yet. One day it will become about the score and then everything will change. And that will be the world he will be inside of. He'll get to choose like the rest of us how to manage judgements and the obvious society markers of winning and losing.
In these circles I've held for the last twelve years, you have a safe space to speak the truth of your fears, triggers, worries and judgements and something happens to them. It is like a magical melting of the ickiness when they are held in trust.
From the beginning I haven't held space for complaining. I like a good rant as much as anyone, believe me! In the circles there is nothing productive about complaining (in fact it is the opposite of the work we do) and it can start of wave of complaining and the magic can't take hold.
To name a fear is powerful medicine. We begin there.
Typing it out can be unnerving. You wonder if you'll be judged. You feel impending doom is about to fall over you.
And then. The magic swirls. The Universe disarms you. A deep breath from the collective circle wraps you up and people say, "I see you. I have that same fear. I judge that way too! What do you need? How can I support you? Is that true?"
If anything, this kind of holding space has changed me. Learning to hold sacred space for others to be seen has changed me. Witnessing their vulnerability and truth is a gift.
I tell a lot of truth when I write for my circles, I share my stories and in return I am blessed with the stories of those who come to circle.
This year I'm adding in some optional one on one time so we can go deeper. There are some questions we need to ask even more privately, and there is a magic in being held and seen as just you. I'll be pulling cards and doing readings and blessings and we will have a collective God box to place those fears and worries in.
This circle won't look like it has in the past. I am not her anymore. My teaching is tighter, the things I care about are more nuanced. I am sober. I am a wisdom seeker and no longer walk a path looking for validation, huge followings and applause.
There are foundational ideas like the space between, dancing in the gray, the flip and those jars we will make. Our stories have changed and we are brand new as we gather under dark moon magic.
We will vision and create books that are filled with our own brand of magic. We will dream and we will create. We will imagine and feel. We will get so clear. We will hold sacred space, create sacred space and learn how to make that about the ordinary moments rather than the exception.
I will create the container and I will pour myself into creating it, but all of you are who it becomes. It is your story and it will be written collectively.
People used to say the women of magic making spoke their own language. It is true. We talk about the magic we've grown from slips of paper and how a page in a book claimed a dream and we write walking prayers and we root down while lifting up.
It is a language of love and trust and faith. It is the language of magic. And we will make it together. I invite you to this circle that feels like a journey you remember deep in your bones.
I invite you into the magic. (edited: the circle for 2020 has closed)
xo H