by Heather Plett | Sep 9, 2015 | circle, growth, journey, Labyrinth
This week, school is back in session. One of my daughters started today and the other two start tomorrow. Two are now in university and one is in grade 8, her last year before high school.
I can say all of the clichéd things, and mean them… My how time flies! Wasn’t it just yesterday I was changing their diapers? How did it all rush past in the blink of an eye?
The return to school always reminds me of the relentless and dependable forward motion of time. Tick, tick, tick goes the clock. Flip, flip, flip go the pages of the calendar.
Today I was rushing out for last minute school supplies, haircut appointments, musical instrument rental, etc., and in the middle of it all, I wanted to hit the pause button. I wanted to slow down the pace of time, enjoy a few more summer days, and cling to my daughters’ fleeting childhood before it all disappears.
From my daughters’ perspective, still in their formative years, this is the way life is supposed to be lived – growing each year, advancing one grade after the other, stepping always forward on the straight line of time guided by the clock and the calendar. It’s the way we’re all raised – to believe that there is always meant to be forward movement. That’s not a bad thing – we want growth to happen.
But that’s only part of the truth and there’s something else I really want my daughters to learn that they probably won’t be taught in school.
Life is to be lived along the spiral and not simply the straight line.
When I was at the beach this summer, working on my book, I spent a lot of time watching pelicans. One of the things I love about pelicans is that, often, they fly across the sky in giant spirals, round and round, adjusting the arc of the spiral just enough each time so that they end at the far side of the sky from where they started.
They do this to conserve energy, riding thermals (updrafts of warm air that rise from the ground into the air), so they don’t have to flap their wings as often. They look so content and relaxed up there, circling round and round with very little effort on their part. High in the sky, they look like mythical creatures, as if they’d climbed out of ancient legends of magicians and shamans. Their shape and the way they move holds both mystery and myth.
That’s the path that I have come to believe is the most true way of seeing our lives. We go round and round, coming back each time to nearly the same place we’ve been, but always with enough of a difference to help us progress forward over time.
How many times have you been in this place you’re at right now? Like the seasons, our lives come back again and again to the harvest of Fall, the dormancy of Winter, the rebirth of Spring, and the growth of Summer. And, like the seasons, we live through the long dark spells, the slow sunny days, the rain, the wind, and the snow. We cycle through grief, through growth, through joy, through surrender, and through ease.
None of the seasons lasts forever. All of them change us a little before we begin the spiral again.
If you are in a place you feel like you’ve been before – whether it’s another cycle through grief, restlessness, waiting, or fear – don’t despair. You’re simply spiralling through the sky, learning what you need to from this trip around the circle, and moving a little further each time.
If you were traveling up a mountain, you’d be best to take the spiralling path, adjusting to the altitude, not tiring yourself out too quickly. Like the pelicans floating on the thermal air, you conserve your energy by not rushing straight ahead. You also learn more and see more that way. This is the way life is meant to be lived.
Don’t rush through, even though the path might seem hard right now. Take what you need from this time, and let it unfold in the fullness of time.
If you want to take a closer look at your own spiral path, I invite you to join us for the October offering of The Spiral Path: A Woman’s Journey to Herself.
Interested in more articles like this? Add your name to my email list and you’ll receive a free ebook, A Path to Connection. I send out weekly newsletters and updates on my work.
by Heather Plett | Sep 2, 2015 | growth, holding space, journey
Now that it’s September, I’m getting back into the rhythm of writing weekly reflections. This one’s fairly short.
I have a few more thoughts about holding space to share with you…
In the past six months, since my blog post went viral, I’ve done more than half a dozen interviews on the topic of holding space. The nice thing about talking about something so much is that I gain a deeper understanding every time I talk about it. Sometimes I say things I didn’t know I knew!
This week, I was doing an interview for an upcoming podcast, when I heard myself say this…
Sometimes the hardest thing about holding space is it can feel and look a lot like doing nothing.
When we’re holding space well, we’re keeping our ego out of it, not controlling the outcome, not giving unsolicited advice, and not taking people’s power away. That can feel a lot like doing nothing.
We all want to DO SOMETHING. When a friend, family member, student, or client is hurting, confused or overwhelmed, it’s really hard not to step in and fix the situation, offer resources, or give advice. Think about all of the food that people give away when someone is grieving – everyone wants something to do in response to the gaping void this person is feeling. Or think about the last time someone confided in you and your first instinct was to rush in and offer them something that might help.
I see it (and feel it myself) often when I host circles. When someone in the circle is crying, people lean in and really, really want to have something to offer – advice, other ways of framing the story, tissue, SOMETHING. But the practice in the circle is to remain silent and to listen with attention when someone else is holding the talking piece. And the greatest healing I have seen take place in the circle is when people feel genuinely and unconditionally listened to.
It’s true that often there are perfectly valid and practical things to do in response to someone else’s pain. I am eternally grateful for all of the people who brought food, looked after my dad’s farm animals, helped us prepare the farm for sale, etc., after Dad died, for example.
But just as often, people need our presence more than they need our actions or advice.
Giving people our presence can feel a whole lot harder than giving them our advice. It can make us feel vulnerable, useless, and unproductive. And yet, when I think back to the people who were the greatest support during my own difficult times, it was often those people who knew how to show up, listen deeply, withhold judgement, and trust me to know how to find my own path through it that were the most memorable. I remember people who showed up after my son died and simply sat there and held his lifeless body while we cried together. And I remember people who came when my husband was in the hospital who sat on park benches or in vehicles or coffee shops and let me talk or cry or scream. They said little and “did” less, but it was just what I needed.
I find the same thing in my work of hosting retreats and workshops. The ones that are the most successful are usually the ones in which I speak the least. When I give people gentle guidance and a safe container to do their own work, they get much more out of it than when I dump a lot of content on them. (The same can be said for parenting.)
This has been well modelled for me by my mentor, Christina Baldwin. At a recent writing retreat, we had a 24 hour silent, solitary, writing period. “I will be in the kitchen area all day, holding space for you,” said Christina. Ostensibly, she was “doing nothing”, and yet we all felt incredibly supported, knowing that she was there, gently holding us. While we did our deep work, we could trust that she was present for us, even though she never said a word. We also knew that the next day in the circle, she would hold the container while we talked about whatever came up.
The next time you’re inclined to do something in support of someone you care about, pause for a moment and consider what they really need. Is there a practical need you can fill, or would it be best to show up and offer deep listening, trust, and unconditional love?
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by Heather Plett | Aug 26, 2015 | childhood, growth, parenting
It all started in Maddy’s room. She’d been complaining for quite some time that she’d had to inherit a room decorated for her sisters when they were quite young and it was time for her to have a room fit for her own thirteen-year-old personality. After waffling between a Harry Potter themed room and pretty-in-pink, she chose a pale pink and we bought the paint. It made me smile when I applied it, because it was the exact opposite of what had happened when I was that age. I couldn’t wait to get rid of the pink in the little-girl bedroom I shared with my sister. In my mind, pink = girlie and girlie wasn’t cool, so the bedroom was painted blue.
Like many in my era, I was figuring out who I was in the face of the feminist movement, and instead of embracing what was feminine, I ran away from it and tried to prove I was worthy by being more masculine. It wasn’t until years later that I realized that a) pink is just a colour and has no inherent meaning, and b) to be whole and strong means to embrace what is feminine along with what is masculine.
The day we were choosing the paint, I overhead Maddy (who wears nothing but dresses) say to her friend, “Legally Blonde is my favourite movie because it shows that you can be both feminine and feminist at the same time.” I’m so glad she’s figuring that out earlier than I did.
My other two daughters are now 18 and 19 and though they’ll both be in university in the Fall, they’ll be staying home and studying locally for now. They were switching bedrooms (it was the 18 year old’s turn to have the bigger room in the basement), so it seemed like the ideal time to refresh their rooms as well.
In both cases, we transformed the rooms from their early-teen choices to their much more grown-up choices. The room in the basement (that had been Nikki’s and was becoming Julie’s) was four bright colours – blue, green, orange and yellow – and was now getting a much more subdued look – black, grey, and light teal-grey. The room upstairs was going from orange and green with huge contrasting polka-dots to a dark beige and white.
Julie’s former orange and green room presented us with the greatest challenge, not because of the boldness of the colours but because she had covered the walls with hundreds of quotes, thoughts, art, etc., in Sharpie marker.
I knew from previous experience that Sharpie marker is almost impossible to cover with paint, even with the very best primer, and yet, five years ago, when she’d asked if she could do it, I said yes. Julie has a gift for script-work and I knew it would be interesting, but more importantly, I had an intuitive sense that it was what she needed at the time.
The hardest year of Julie’s life so far was when she was thirteen and in grade 8. She’s a deep thinker and a deep feeler, and the world was too intense for her at the time. We watched her walk through a depression and we worried every single day about whether we were doing the right things to support her. When she started writing on the walls, I bought the Sharpie markers, hoping that turning her bedroom walls into a journal of her angst and attempts to rise out of that angst might be healing for her. It was.
Some of what was on the walls was quite angry (especially what she hid in the closet), some was quite hopeful, and all of it was a search for her own path and for meaning in a complex world. Like, for example, the giant word “HOPE” with the smaller words underneath “hold on pain ends”.
While we painted over the Sharpie markings last week, Julie thanked me for letting her do it. On an Instagram photo she posted, she said this: “Incredibly thankful to have the kind of parents who let their angsty 13 year old daughter put her art all over her walls, even if it involves buying $70 primer to cover it up 5 years later.”
Like any parent, I had no idea if we were doing the right thing at the time, and yet we did what we could. And now she has grown into a strong, articulate and wise 18 year old who was class valedictorian at her recent graduation and who won a scholarship for being a gifted writer. (Here’s a piece of her writing I once shared on my blog.)
A few insights emerged while I painted the walls last week, not just about parenting but about holding space for anyone going through their own personal growth. Parenting three daughters who each have unique (and surprisingly different) personalities is a great training ground for my coaching and facilitation work.
Here’s what I’m learning about holding space for people in the midst of their own personal growth:
1) Respect each person as an individual. No two people need exactly the same things at the same time. My other 2 daughters never wrote on the walls, but they need other things, and so we try to offer them what they need to help them through the rough spots. When I try to treat them all the same, I do them a disservice. For example, one is an introvert, one’s an extrovert and one is somewhere in between. They’re learning to recognize what they each need in order to replenish their energy.
2) Honour whatever place a person is in their own journey. Don’t expect someone else’s journey to look anything like yours. All three bedrooms are completely different from what they were and all of them reflect the places the girls are in right now (not five years ago and not five years in the future). There are choices in each bedroom that are different from the choices I might have made, but I’m not the ones occupying those spaces.
3.) Help people find their own right creative practices. During Julie’s depression, I tried to get her to do some of the things that help me through the darkness, but none of those things were right for her. I couldn’t take that personally because it wasn’t about me – it was about her. What worked for her was Sharpie markers and permission to make art on the walls.
4.) Don’t be afraid to let others take risks you wouldn’t take. I often marvel at how confidently Maddy embraces dresses and the colour pink. (At the same time, she also considered black skull-and-crossbone curtains – she is far from one-dimensional.) None of her friends wear dresses and I doubt whether any of them would choose the colour of paint she chose, and yet it’s what she likes and that’s all that matters.
5.) Give people a safe place to hide, to be themselves, to fail, or separate themselves from others. I am so glad that I had the privilege of giving each of my girls a beautiful new space to call their own. They are all learning to honour their own choices, their own sense of when they need to withdraw from the world, and their own boundaries. Those are powerful things to learn, especially for teenage girls navigating a world that places far too many expectations on them. Nikki, my most introverted daughter, loves to close the door to her room and listen to her record player alone, while her more extraverted sisters have been happy to invite friends over to enjoy their rooms with them.
I don’t often write posts about my daughters or about parenting, because their stories are their own and because most days I feel like I’m wandering around in the dark trying to feel my way through. But my parenting journey has taught me much about what it means to hold space for people on their own personal growth paths and I know that I am a better coach and facilitator for the lessons I’ve learned along the way. I can only hope that my daughters will continue to grow into strong, resilient, and courageous young women.
by Heather Plett | Jul 25, 2015 | connection, growth, journey
Three years ago, I finished writing a memoir. After more than a year of hard work, I was pretty sure it just needed the eyes of an editor to find the spelling errors and smooth out the rough spots. I started working on getting it published.
But then, life got in the way. My Mom’s cancer came back with a vengeance, and soon she was slipping away from us. Losing her knocked the wind out of me and I had nothing to give to the book.
Last year, I went back to the book, but it held very little energy for me anymore. The loss of mom had changed the end of the story, and when I read through it again, I knew that there were big sections of it that needed re-writing. Several times, I tried to revisit it, and once or twice thought I was finally getting back into the groove, but in the end, it always fell flat and I abandoned it. There was something missing and some parts that simply didn’t flow.
Earlier this year, I decided I’d take the book to the Self as Source of the Story writing retreat on Whidbey Island. I told myself that if I found any inspiration to bring it back to life, I’d stick with it, but if not, I’d finally let it die.
Almost as soon as I got there, life was breathed back into it. A new and intriguing voice emerged that wanted to be heard in the story, and it was instantly clear that that’s what had been missing from the first version. As Christina Baldwin says, “I wrote like heaven.”
When I came home, though, it was harder to find that voice again and I worried that it was only something I could tap into in the magical retreat centre on Whidbey Island. With end-of-school activities consuming much of my attention, I let the book rest for awhile.
And then one day I had the inspiration to ask my friend Louise about the availability of her cottage. Perhaps if I secluded myself in a cottage by the lake for a week the new voice and the energy to complete the book would return. I was right. For five days, I again wrote like heaven.
where I wrote for 5 days
At the end of the week, when I’d finished weaving the new voice in with the old, I started the painstaking work of going through it all page by page, trying to find the weak spots. As I did so, I bumped up against some of the old resistance that showed up last year. Suddenly, I doubted whether the book was any good. There were still large sections of it that didn’t flow well and I wasn’t sure it was worth trying to fix them.
I did the only thing I knew to do – I stood up from my computer and went for a long walk on the beach. Somewhere in the middle of the walk, after finding treasures on the beach and watching pelicans float in spirals across the sky, I knew what I had to do. I had to be ruthless and chop out the pieces that didn’t work.
I went back to my computer and started chopping. Anything that felt awkward or that didn’t fit with the new rhythm of the book disappeared into the ether. Almost 10,000 words disappeared in short order and it felt surprisingly good.
Halfway through that process I realized that the pieces being chopped had something in common.
I was cutting out every piece where I tried too hard to explain myself.
I wasn’t letting the story speak for itself. Instead, I was interjecting, offering ways for the reader to understand the story. In doing so, I was not only dragging down the flow of the story, but I was treating the reader like he or she wasn’t smart enough to weave together the threads and draw his or her own conclusion. Most importantly, I was treating the story like it didn’t have enough merit to stand on its own without explanation.
It suddenly occurred to me that what I was doing when I wrote the first draft of the book is the same thing I do in my life – I over-explain myself. This summer, for example, I decided that I wasn’t going to take any new coaching clients. Each time someone writes asking me to coach them, I feel badly about saying no and I feel a need to justify myself. I do the same when I’m teaching and I have to make an unpopular decision – I over-explain it to the students instead of simply saying “this is my decision”. And I do it in my relationships too. If I’m tired and don’t want to pick up one of my daughters from work, I feel compelled to give her an explanation.
What am I doing when I over-explain myself? I’m diminishing my own value. I’m treating myself like I don’t have a right to make these decisions unless I have a good reason to justify them. I’m letting other people’s stories be more important than my own. And I’m giving in to the fear that I might be rejected if I don’t have a good enough reason for my choice.
When I made that realization, a little snippet of a Bible verse came back to me… “Let your yes be yes and your no be no.”
I’m not sure what the writer’s intent was when he wrote that passage, but I know what it now means for me.
If you’ve made a decision from a place of integrity, there is no need to justify it to anyone.
Don’t diminish the value of your own story by over-explaining it.
Don’t treat yourself like you don’t have the right to make a decision a certain way by over-explaining your reason for it.
When I cut out those 10,000 words of explanation, I knew right away that the book was stronger and easier to read. The story can stand on its own merit. Too much explanation takes away from the poetry of it.
The same is true when I cut out the over-explaining from my vocabulary. My choices can stand on their own merit. Too much explanation diminishes my strength and questions my value.
Let your yes be yes and your no be no.
Do you want to learn to write from an open heart? The next Openhearted Writing Circle is on September 18th and it’s online so anyone with a computer can join!
Looking for a self-discovery practice that will help you learn to trust yourself more? Mandala Discovery starts on August 1st.
Interested in more articles like this? Add your name to my email list and you’ll receive a free ebook, A Path to Connection. I send out weekly newsletters and updates on my work.
by Heather Plett | Jun 3, 2015 | change, circle, Community, Compassion, growth, journey, Leadership
“…whenever I dehumanize another, I necessarily dehumanize all that is human—including myself.”
– from the book Anatomy of Peace
This week, I’ve been thinking about how we hold space when there is an imbalance in power or privilege.
This has been a long-time inquiry for me. Though I didn’t use the same language at the time, I wrote my first blog post about how I might hold space for people I was about to meet in Africa whose socio-economic status was very different from mine.
I had long dreamed of going to Africa, but ten and a half years ago, when I was getting ready for my first trip, I was feeling nervous about it. I wasn’t nervous about snakes or bugs or uncomfortable sleeping arrangements – I was nervous about the way relationships would unfold.
I was traveling with the non-profit I worked for at the time and we were visiting some of the villages where our funding had supported hunger-related projects. That meant that, in almost every encounter I’d have, I would represent the donor and they would be the recipients. I was pretty sure that those two predetermined roles would change how we’d interact. My desire to be in authentic and reciprocal relationship with them would be hindered by their perceived need to “keep the donor happy”.
That challenge was further exacerbated by:
- a history of colonization in the countries where I was visiting, which meant that my white skin would automatically be associated with the colonizers
- my own history of growing up in a church where white missionaries often visited and told us about how they were working in Africa to convert the heathens
In that first blog post, I wrestled with what it would mean to carry that baggage with me to Africa. I ended the post with this… I won’t expect that my English words are somehow endued with greater wisdom than theirs. I will listen and let them teach me. I will open my heart to the hope and the hurt. I will tread lightly on their soil and let the colours wash over me. I will allow the journey to stretch me and I will come back larger than before.
In another blog post, after the trip, I wrote about how hard it was to find the right words to say to the people who’d gathered at a food distribution site…What can I say that is worthy of this moment? How can I assure them I long for friendship, not reverence?
That trip, and other subsequent ones to Ethiopia, India, and Bangladesh, stretched and challenged me. Each time I went, I wrestled with the way that my privilege and access to power would change my interactions. I became more and more intentional about entering into relationships with humility, grace, and openheartedness. I did my best to treat each person with dignity and respect, to learn from them, and to challenge my own assumptions and prejudice.
Nowadays, I don’t have the same travel opportunities, but I still find myself in a variety of situations in which there is imbalance. Sometimes I have been the one with less privilege and power (like when I used to work in corporate environments with male scientists, or when I traveled with and offered support to mostly male politicians). Other times, I have access to more power and/or privilege than others in the room (like when I am the teacher at the front of the classroom, or I am meeting with people of Indigenous descent). In each situation, I find myself aware of how the imbalance impacts the way we interact.
This week in Canada, the final report on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s findings related to Residential Schools has come out and it raises this question for all of us across the country. Justice Murray Sinclair, chair of the commission, has urged us to take action to address the cultural genocide of residential schools on aboriginal communities. Those are strong words (and necessary, I believe) and they call all of us to acknowledge the divide in power and privilege between the Indigenous people and those of us who are Settlers in this nation.
How do we hold space in a country in which there has been genocide? How do we who are settlers acknowledge our own privilege and the wounds inflicted by our ancestors in an effort to bring healing to us all?
This is life-long learning for me, and I don’t always get it right (as I shared after our first race relations conversation), but I keep trying because I know this is important. I know this matters, no matter which side of the power imbalance I stand on.
If we want to see real change in the world, we need to know how to be in meaningful relationships with people who stand on the other side of the power imbalance.
Here are some of my thoughts on what it takes to hold space for people when there is a power imbalance.
- Don’t pretend “we’re all the same”. White-washing or ignoring the imbalance in the room does not serve anyone. Acknowledging who holds the privilege and power helps open the space for more honest dialogue. If you are the person with power, say it out loud and do your best to share that power. Listen more than you speak, for example, or decide that any decisions that need to be made will be made collectively. If you lack power, say that too, in as gracious and non-blaming a way as possible.
- Change the physical space. It may seem like a small thing to move the chairs, to step away from the podium, or to step out from behind a desk, but it can make a big difference. A conversation in circle, where each person is at the same level, is very different from one in which a person is at the front of the room and others are in rows looking up at that person. In physical space that suggests equality, people are more inclined to open up.
- Invite contribution from everyone. Giving each person a voice (by using a talking piece when you’re sharing stories, for example) goes a long way to acknowledging their dignity and humanity. Allowing people to share their gifts (by hosting a potluck, or asking people to volunteer their organizational skills, for example) makes people feel valued and respected.
- Create safety for difficult conversations. When you enter into challenging conversations with people on different sides of a power imbalance, you open the door for anger, frustration, grief, and blaming. Using the circle to hold such conversations helps diffuse these heightened emotions. Participants are invited to pour their stories and emotions into the center instead of dumping them on whoever they choose to blame.
- Don’t pretend to know how the other person feels. Each of us has a different lived experience and the only way we can begin to understand what another person brings to the conversation (no matter what side of the imbalance they’re on) is to give them space to share their stories. Acting like you already know how they feel dismisses their emotions and will probably cause them to remain silent.
- Offer friendship rather than sympathy. If you want to build a reciprocal relationship, sympathy is the wrong place to start. Sympathy is a one-way street that broadens the power gap between you. Friendship, on the other hand, has well-worn paths in both directions. Sympathy builds power structures and walls. Friendship breaks down the walls and puts up couches and tables. Sympathy creates a divide. Friendship builds a bridge.
- Even if you have little access to power or privilege, trust that your listening and compassion can impact the outcome. I was struck by a recent story of how a group of Muslims invited anti-Muslim protestors with guns into their mosque for evening prayers. An action like that can have significant impact, cracking open the hearts of those who’ve let themselves be ruled by hatred.
- Don’t be afraid to admit that you don’t know the way through. Real change happens only when there is openness to paths that haven’t been discovered yet. If you walk into a conversation assuming you know how it needs to turn out, you won’t invite authenticity and openness into the room. Your vulnerability and openheartedness invites it in others.
- Don’t try this alone. This kind of work requires strong partnerships. People from all sides of the power or privilege divide need to not only be in the conversation, but be part of the hosting and planning teams. That’s the only way to ensure all voices are heard and all cultural sensitivities are honoured.
I welcome your thoughts on this. What have you found that makes a difference for conversations where there is an imbalance?
Interested in more articles like this? Add your name to my email list and you’ll receive a free ebook, A Path to Connection. I send out weekly newsletters and updates on my work.
by Heather Plett | May 29, 2015 | circle, courage, growth, journey, Labyrinth, Uncategorized
“Do you wish to be great? Then begin by being. Do you desire to construct a vast and lofty fabric? Think first about the foundations of humility. The higher your structure is to be, the deeper must be its foundation.” – Saint Augustine
Since returning from my trip to Whidbey Island on Monday, I have been trying to come up with at least a few words to describe my time away. I haven’t been very successful, though. If you’re following me on social media, you might have noticed an uncharacteristic silence of late. It’s hard to say in 140 characters or less what I can’t even describe in a blog post or conversation.
Some experiences are two deep for words.It was one of those life-changing, heart-opening, paradigm-shifting trips.
I was on Whidbey Island for two purposes – a.) to work with a small circle of people on a new website for The Circle Way, and b.) to replenish myself and dive into my writing at Self as Source of the Story, a retreat facilitated by my mentor, Christina Baldwin.
Both of those experiences were dreams come true. I am working and learning and building things with my mentors and friends, and finding my way on the very path I first started dreaming about fifteen years ago. It’s been an incredible journey, learning to trust the nudgings and whispers along the way, gaining resilience in the hard parts, and trying to be patient in the slow parts.
If you’re hanging onto a dream that just won’t let you go, take heart – it may be slow in showing up, but that doesn’t mean it’s not coming. Keep your heart focused in the right direction, and life may some day surprise you with its abundance and grace.
The entire trip felt like a divinely-offered gift, and there are many parts of it that feel tender and fragile and that I need to hold close to my chest right now rather than share. Some day they will become part of my storytelling, but not yet – not until they are full grown and well processed and strong enough to stand on their own. (In a few months, you have permission to ask about the frog that showed up on my 49th birthday and the gold key that came to me in the labyrinth.)
The biggest lesson of the trip was this…
Authentic living is like scuba diving. Just when you get comfortable diving to a certain level, you’ll become curious about what the sea looks like further down and you won’t be able to rest until you get there. Soon you’ll be developing the lung capacity and looking for the equipment to take you deeper.
During Monday’s closing circle at the writing retreat, I said “I’ve been a writer long enough to know that every few years I’ll be invited into an even deeper understanding of and connection with my own voice. I just didn’t know how deep this week was going to take me.” This statement doesn’t only apply to writers – it applies to anyone on a personal/spiritual journey. We are always invited to go deeper.
I’d started the retreat with one goal in mind – to gain some clarity about the book I finished nearly three years ago. Some of you who’ve followed me for awhile know that I was working on a book about how the three weeks leading up to and including the birth and death of my son Matthew changed my life. I thought I was finished that book three years ago. I was in the process of editing it when my Mom was diagnosed with cancer.
Mom’s death changed the story. Not only did my grief make it difficult to re-enter the story of my short relationship with Matthew, it changed the very fabric of what I’d put on the page.
Several times since then, I’ve taken it off the virtual shelf and tried to revisit it, but there was always resistance. I didn’t know how to bring it to completion. I hadn’t found the right equipment or developed the lung capacity for the deeper dive.
By the time I got to the retreat, I was ready to simply put it away and allow it to be part of my own personal growth and never have it published. But I opened myself to the possibility that the story wasn’t finished yet. It wouldn’t leave me alone.
In the very first writing prompt at the retreat, I cracked the story open again. Instead of putting it onto the shelf, I was invited into a deeper understanding of it. A new voice showed up on the page. Or rather – an old voice showed up – an old voice that wanted to weave itself into mine. This old voice had always been there, but I hadn’t known how to tap into it before. It took the right container, the right intention, an open heart, and a few simple words from my mentor to crack it open.
That’s the lesson I want to leave with you today… Your personal work is never done. You will always be invited to go deeper.
I don’t know what your version of “deeper” will look like, but I know that if you create the right container, find the right circle of support, and let yourself be guided by the right mentor(s), you’ll be invited into deeper and deeper self-awareness and deeper and deeper trust in your own voice.
This deep diving doesn’t happen by accident, however, and it doesn’t happen at the fringes of our overly-busy lives. We have to be intentional about it, create space in our lives to invite it in, and seek out the people who will lovingly hold space for it. We have to seek out the equipment and do the practices that increase our spiritual lung capacity.
Throughout the week, I did the work to invite this deeper voice more fully into my life and work. I walked the labyrinth several times, I spent a day in silence, I had deep and personal conversations with like-minded people, I wandered the woods, I sat in circle and listened to other people’s stories, and I wrote pages and pages in my journal. I also shed a lot of tears and let some of my fears hold court until they felt adequately heard and were willing to let me move on.
Our deeper voices have to be tended well. They don’t show up by accident and they’ll go back into hiding if we don’t create space in our lives to foster them. They are easily swayed by fear and easily ignored by long to-do lists, unless we give them priority attention.
If you feel that you are being invited into the next layer of depth, be intentional about creating space for it.
- Go on a retreat that’s long enough for the work you need to do
- Spend an hour each day with your journal and your spiritual practices,
- Find a coach or mentor who will ask the right questions,
- Gather like-minded people into circle, and
- Guard the parts of the story that feel tender and fragile. (Only share those parts with your most trusted confidantes – people who can be trusted to help you nurture them.)
If you need some support, consider joining The Spiral Path: A Woman’s Journey to Herself (starts June 1st). Or sign up for one of the remaining spots in the Openhearted Writing Circle (online on June 6th). Or learn to Lead with Your Wild Heart. (Note: At this time, I am not accepting new coaching clients, but will open the door again in September.)
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