“Owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing we’ll ever do”
Brene Brown

There’s a certain art to becoming who you are, and it’s not a path for the faint-hearted …

Becoming who you are is a shedding—
an “obesity of grief“ over the anyone you could have been, if only the soil you grew in had been more nourishing, the climate warmer, the waters refreshing … 

Instead, the skewed-you grew and walked the path, once-removed from your body—with a nervous system primed to see danger in the smallest of things. You half-lived your life, carried those bags of fear and shame (with a side of self-loathing) wherever you went, spilling their contents over those you were supposed to love well.

It would be years before the pain that changed you, “in little chips and cracks”, slipped up and pulled the curtain aside, allowing you to see the story you’d been living: less Disney, more Grimm, all necessary for the becoming.

The menopause fires burnt away what was unnecessary, revealed gaping wounds and confusion. A hollow rootlessness and restlessness. You learnt to tend those old wounds: you sang, you wrote, you bathed. You listened-on-loop to music medicine, sank to your hands and knees, eyes closed, moved how the body wanted to. You rested. You Netflix-nested.

And, somehow, managed to untangle those story-threads. You grieved what should have been, but wasn’t; mourned what was, but shouldn’t have been. The spell broke and you began to dream again, to weave anew. And now, here you are, almost yourself …

Yes, there’s a certain art to it, this becoming. For now, it involves practising unfettered creativity and wild expression:

singing, wild voicing, harmonising
medicine drumming
writing unfettered*
wild-body moving
witchcraft

And, really, underneath it all, is a quest for wholeness; a want to return the lost parts, through the lost arts of paying attention, and listening to the small soul voice inside.

It is the art of growing wild trust in this soft animal body’s infinite wisdom. It is the art of noticing when the insides are closing, freezing, then moving, instead, towards warming, opening, expansive, joy-bringing pleasure. It is learning to hold both dark and light with equal tenderness, loving both sides, knowing they are an intricate part of the woven whole.

Won’t you join me on this journey home ..?

*Writing Unfettered is an intuitive, free-flowing writing practise that has strong ancestral roots and follows the path laid by Natalie Goldberg, in ‘Writing Down the Bones’, Julia Cameron, in ‘The Artist’s Way’, and my teacher, Laurie Wagner in her ‘Wild Writing®’ . This is not a craft and grammar practise—no writing experience is necessary. Instead a spirit of adventure, for this inward quest. This is a wild journey of self-discovery; an invitation to drop the masks and lay your naked truths down on the page. Exhilarating. Liberating. Alchemising.

“loving writing with you ~ a truly liberating space in my week and my heart”

JP

“To have a voice is to have a Self
and to have a Self is powerful …”
Marilyn Bousquin

A few (published) true things:

‘This, Too, Is Love’ in Pippa Grace’s, ‘Mother in the Mother’
‘The Long Flight Home’ in Chicken Soup for the Soul’s, ‘Kindness Matters’
‘The Small Shaft of Light’ in George Halfin’s, ‘A Life Less Serious’
‘A Recipe for Change’ in WOW! Women On Writing’s, The Muffin
‘Overgrown’ in Christopher Fielden’s, ‘Sensorially Challenged: Volume 2’
‘Identity Crisis’ in Christopher Fielden’s, ‘Adverbially Challenged: Volume 5’