It’s one of the most common questions I get from people I encounter in the tiny village I moved to at the edge of a lake on Vancouver Island. “It was time for a change,” I say, or “I’ve been wandering since I sold my house in Winnipeg, and this felt like the next right thing,” or “My kids all grew up and moved away so I thought it was my turn for an adventure,” or “I wanted a place with gentler winters.”
Whenever I’m asked the question, I have to pause and ask myself “Why DID I move here? What was the truest impetus for this decision and how do I explain that to other people when I don’t quite understand it myself? How do I talk about gut feelings and a life-long draw toward the ocean and a longing to be among tall trees and deep moss? And are there things I’m not fully admitting to myself or that I don’t want to say out loud – like a desire to be in a different place than where much of my trauma lives?”
It’s not that I doubt my decision – far from it – I have rarely felt more at peace about a big life choice than I have about this one. I love it here. My body feels like she has found home. I’m sitting right now looking out at the tall cedar tree in the backyard of my new home and I feel like I have found new friends among the trees. It still feels rather exceptional, after years of parenting and marriage and place-based work and looking after the needs of other people that I got to make this choice purely motivated by my own pleasure and longing. It’s a special kind of privilege that I have and I don’t take that for granted.
But what gets me into an existential place with this question is a bigger one that I often grapple with… Can I ever truly KNOW myself? Can I ever truly know, without a shadow of a doubt, that a choice I’m making is rooted in my own identity and desire and isn’t tinged with obligation, trauma, fear, or social conditioning? Can I ever really see myself clearly enough that I know which biases, beliefs, baggage, or barriers are shaping the choices I make?
I suppose it’s a rather odd question, coming from someone who’s relaunching a course called “Know Yourself, Free Yourself” in just a few weeks, but if you’ve been following me for awhile, you probably know by now that I have never been a person of absolutes – a person who doesn’t continue to question and explore an idea even after she’s put it into writing. I have often joked that I wished my books could be published with Velcro pages so that I could change the ones that no longer fully reflect the evolution of my beliefs and worldview.
Yes, I’m teaching a course with “Know Yourself” in the title, but that’s not because I believe we can ever FULLY know ourselves or that we are ever meant to be static enough in our identity that knowing ourselves is a once-and-done accomplishment. Quite the opposite – I believe that self-awareness is a life-long quest, and not something you can ever complete in an 8-week course. (Perhaps I should have called the course “Explore Yourself, Free Yourself”.)
As I said in the last post, I think identity is a rather slippery thing, and that’s okay with me. I don’t need it to be static. There are very few things that I feel like I need to know with 100% certainty anymore. Except when my nervous system is particularly activated and it feels like certainty would give me some measure of safety, I have mostly become quite accepting of ambiguity and liminality. Even when I make big decisions, like moving to an island 2400 kilometres from where I lived most of my life, I’m okay with a “good enough” understanding of why I made the choice.
There is still much to explore about who I am. I don’t fully know what I believe, for example, especially when it comes to faith and religion. I grew up with a narrow understanding of what faith was supposed to look like, and with regular reminders that if I didn’t have that particular kind of faith, I would suffer the punishment of hell. It took me a long time to work through the fear that that kind of teaching instilled in me (which I wrote more about in my book, Where Tenderness Lives), and when I finally realized it wasn’t a faith that felt alive in me anymore, I spent years trying to figure out what I actually DO believe. I haven’t let go of a belief that there is a loving divine who’s looking out for me, but now I more frequently use words like Mystery and Tenderness and that fits me better than the language of “God” (especially the male version of that terminology). But is there a tangible belief at the heart of this that I can claim and define? Not really – it feels different nearly every day. Much of it is rooted in a relationship with nature, but that doesn’t mean I’ve fully embraced language like “animism” or “wiccan”.
I also don’t fully know where I stand when it comes to my own gender and sexuality. I use she/her pronouns, and I’ve come out as queer (which I also wrote about in my newest book), but it still feels kind of fuzzy to me. Mostly I feel more attracted to women than to men, but it doesn’t feel definitive the way it seems to for some people (especially since I could also imagine myself with a non-binary or trans person anywhere on the spectrum). What’s the terminology for that, and… does it matter? I would defend the right of anyone who feels more certain than I about their sexual/gender identity (especially if it means they have to fight against transphobia to be their truest selves), but that doesn’t mean I can find that kind of certainty in my own body.
Beyond sexuality, there are many, many things I have yet to learn about my body. I get stuck in my head a lot and it’s only been in recent years that I started to pay more attention to what my body needs or what she is trying to communicate to me. Old habits die hard and so I still ignore many signals and forget to take care of myself. Sometimes I’m surprised to discover, years after something starts showing up in my body, that it’s related to a transition my body is going through (like menopause) or a past event.
In all of these cases – faith, sexuality and embodiment – I’ve experienced trauma that’s shaped the way I show up in the world, so… again, I don’t know what’s fully ME and what is a trauma imprint left in my body. Which leaves me wondering… is there any way to separate the two? Is there actually a version of identity, for any of us, that is not at least somewhat trauma-shaped. We are each an amalgamation of both our DNA and all of the experiences we’ve had in our lives, plus our DNA holds trauma from the lineage that came before us. In other words, it’s probably most true that trauma healing isn’t about reverting back to some magical pre-trauma state, but about learning the most healthy adaptation that allows the trauma-imprint to live in our bodies without causing further harm.
So maybe the best we can do is not to ever expect to KNOW ourselves, but to commit ourselves to a lifelong exploration of who we’ve become AND to allow ourselves to continue to evolve and shape-shift to meet the life ahead of us.
Which brings me back to my course, Know Yourself, Free Yourself. When I think of the impetus for creating the course, it’s less about trying to find certainty about our identity than it is about learning to be more at peace with the uncertainty, learning to see things about ourselves that might keep us bound to old narratives, and learning to find freedom so that we can continue to evolve instead of being held back by things like trauma, social conditioning, and the systems that oppress us.
It’s true that I will likely never fully know myself, but I will NEVER regret the quest to find out more about who I am, what (and who) I love, what shaped me, what limits me, what brings me delight, and what makes my body feel the most alive, safe and free. And I will never regret the depths I’ve gone to understand the shaping of a human – things like trauma, social conditioning, oppression, mental health, family systems, belief systems, and the way a human nervous system works. And, more than anything, I will never regret what it took to find the courage to step away from some of those old narratives that kept me in a box and claim my right to be someone other than the identity I once felt confined to.
Every step of this quest has been worthwhile, and it’s brought me here, to this little village at the edge of a lake on an island at the edge of a big country – a place where I feel deep joy and liberation and safety in my body, and a place where I don’t need to pretend to be someone I’m not.
Allow me to (re)introduce myself to you… My name is Heather. I live in Shawnigan Lake on Vancouver Island because I leaned into a desire that brought me toward the ocean and the tall trees. It’s also true that I wanted to see what it felt like for my body to live in a different city from where I experienced most of my trauma. I am a spiritual person, but my faith is liminal and not easy to define. I am queer, but I don’t entirely know how to define that either – just that my body lives in the liminal spaces of gender and sexuality. I keep evolving, so the things that were true of me last year might not be entirely true this year. I started liking coffee and the smell of lavender last year – both of which seem like strange things to start at the age of 56, but I’m okay with that. I have an adventurous spirit and I like to explore both my inner landscape and the landscape that lives outside of my body. I wrote two books that I’m proud of, but I’ll need to keep writing new books because the ideas I’ve put into words in the past may not be sufficient for the ways I’ll view the world (and myself) in the future.
I am pleased to meet you! What do you know about yourself?
* I would rather teach people to think beautiful thoughts than to create grammatically correct sentences.
* I believe that beauty and justice are inextricably intertwined and I want to bring more of both into the world.
* I believe that the greatest inventions, discoveries, and solutions emerge when people start asking the right questions.
* I believe that you have to ask a lot of questions in order to get to the right ones.
* I am happy when I can help bold creativity blossom in those around me.
* A little part of me shrivels up inside when I find myself stifling creativity with too many rules and judgements.
* I am easily distracted by colourful markers and clean white paper.
* I believe that personal leadership is more important than positional leadership.
* I choose community over team, circle over hierarchy, and family over corporation.
* I believe that shared stories open doorways to transformation.
* I am less productive when I haven’t had time for deep contemplation and equally deep play. The two go hand in hand.
* I believe that our differences are important but that they should not divide us.
* I delight in making new connections with people whose ways of looking at the world intrigue me. I am open to letting them change me, if it’s for the best.
* I am committed to hosting and being part of more conversations and inquiries that follow spiral patterns (moving inward to deeper wisdom) rather than linear pathways.
* Deep and soulful listening is often the best gift I can give anyone, and so I strive to keep my mouth shut and my ears open more often.
* I believe in walking lightly on this earth, and hope to some day use fewer resources for my own personal gain.
* I want to be open-minded and open-hearted and to live with delight as my constant companion.
* I believe that vulnerability and truth-telling can serve as catalysts for deep relationships and profound change.
* I believe that in order to create one great work of art you have to be prepared to create at least 100 mediocre ones first.
* I believe that time spent in meditation, prayer, and body movement is never time wasted, and I hope to some day live like I believe it.
* I believe that God created each of us to do good work and that we cheat our Creator and our world when we let our self-doubt and fear keep us from doing it.
* I want to bring more colour and light into otherwise dreary spaces.
* I strive to be more courageous tomorrow than I was today.
* I believe in daily transformation, continuous learning, and growth that doesn’t end until the day I exhale my last breath.
* I am committed to doing my best work, which is at the intersection of creativity, leadership, community, and story-telling.
See those little pockets of green all over my neighbourhood? I’m attracted to them like a magnet to steel.
Since this has been my summer of wandering (and the summer of beautiful weather), and training for my upcoming 100 km walk, I’ve had a chance to explore a lot of green spaces. It’s become a habit of mine – scan a Google map, find a patch of green I haven’t explored yet, and go.
Sometimes I find lovely parks I didn’t know existed, with manicured paths, and child-filled play structures.
Often though, I walk past the manicured parks to the next green space.
My favourite discoveries are not the parks. My favourites are the untamed, unruly, un-manicured spaces that scream out to my inner child “EXPLORE ME!”
And explore them I do, these little pockets of wildness. I climb over underbrush, hop over puddles, shimmy under fallen trees, and push through thick branches, until I am so deep inside the green box on the map that the city just outside the boundary ceases to exist.
Inside the green I find hidden streams, magical trees, colourful mushrooms, raucous wildflowers, and – when I’m lucky – deer.
What I find most of all, though, in those untamed green spaces, is my own wild heart.
I remember what it means to be wild and unruly. I remember what it feels like to be free of the tidy little boxes I let society place me in. I feel the lilt come back to my step that tells me I am following my heart and not the expectations of others.
From the moment I step off the well-traveled path and into the green square on the map, I am transported back to my childhood, when I used to roam the woods on our farmland, imagining myself a gypsy or an explorer.
The child in me revived, I revel in each discovery. I stare in awe at the leaves quivering in the breeze and twinkling in the sunlight. I marvel at the patterns in the bark of trees. I giggle at the bare patches where it looks like fairies have danced. I look deeply into the magical eyes of deer.
It doesn’t take much to give my wild nature space to breath. Just a little green shape on a map.
At the beginning of this summer, I turned 45. It was kind of a big deal – a mid-way point in my life.
When I turned 45, I decided that, instead of getting all serious and introspective (like I am inclined to do), I would do something fun to honour what I like about myself.
And so I created the e-course “A Path for Wanderers and Edge-walkers” and started writing lessons about what it means to be a wanderer, a globe-trotter, an edge-walker, a gypsy, a gadabout… in other words, what it means to be ME.
And then I spent much of the summer wandering. I wandered through my city, I wandered on beaches, I wandered through the woods… I wandered on foot, I wandered by bicycle, and I wandered by canoe. While I wandered, I came up with lessons and inspirations and I TOOK GREAT DELIGHT IN MY WANDERING! Not only that, but I learned a lot from it and realized that my wandering edge-walking spirit is one of my greatest strengths. You can see a lot from the edge that people in the centre can’t see.
Now I have completed 12 lessons in the series (none of which I wrote at home – it seems I needed to be doing the wandering in order to write about it), and it is some of my very favourite writing ever. It’s writing that stretched me to think outside the box, to re-define myself, to dig into my spiritual self, to re-imagine the world, and to see other people differently. I hope it will stretch you too.
One of the things I learned this summer is that not only am I a wanderer and an edge-walker, but most of the members of the tribe I tend to gather around myself are wanderers and edge-walkers too.
Here’s a quote from someone who’s been enjoying the series this summer:
“Heather’s unique blend of practical wisdom, passion & creativity is reflected so eloquently here. She instinctively knows how best to inspire & encourage, capturing perfectly the deep yearning of every edge-walker & wide-eyed wanderer! The rich mix of personal story-telling (with corresponding photographs), a treasure trove of insightful interviews plus a wealth of probing questions, provides the reader with much to ponder. It is both challenging, hugely inspirational & deeply uplifting – a real treat! Thank you!” – Jo Hassan
Last week I spent a good deal of time compiling all 12 lessons into an e-book. When I wander, I like to take photographs, and this e-book not only has 115 pages of juicy, rich, inspiring content, it also contains 115 of my original photographs from my global wanderings.
I am so in love with this product that I want to share it with everyone.
Here’s a list of the lesson titles:
1. Permission to be a wanderer
2. What does your Wandering say about You?
3. Risk Making Connections
4. The Wanderer at the Edge – On Naming Ourselves
5. When Journeys Change us – Slowing Down to the Speed of Soul
6. Curiosity DIDN’T kill the cat – Life as a Learning Journey
7. At the Halfway Point – Self-care for Wanderers & Wandering as Self-care
8. Following the Thread – A Wanderer’s Journey
9. Like the Wild Prairies, Remember your Nature
10. The Blessing of the Pelicans – Guidance in the Wandering
11. Wander to the Right – Playing with your Brain
12. Wandering as Spiritual Quest
Each of these lessons includes an interview with another wonderful wanderer. Find out who they are here.
Since it’s nearing the end of summer, I’m in a good mood, and I’m in the final stretch of preparing for my 100 km. wander in early September, I want to give you the chance to buy “A Path for Wanderers & Edge-walkers” for half price.
That’s just $12.50 for 115 pages of juicy, fun, challenging content. (But only until the September 7, and then it goes back to its regular price of $25.)
To learn more about it click here. On that page, you’ll have the option of buying it as a set of emails that you receive each week for 12 weeks or as a complete 115 page e-book.
If you already know that you want the complete e-book, go ahead and click “Add to cart” below.
My birthday is coming up on Thursday, and since my dear friend Michele is throwing a little celebration in my honour tomorrow night (if you live close enough, YOU are welcome – at least, if you fit the “ladies only” profile), I’ve decided that this year I’m going to celebrate a whole BIRTHDAY WEEK instead of just one day! Yes, I’m feeling horribly narcissistic about the whole thing, but I figured I’ve done a fair bit of sacrificing in the past month or two, so it shouldn’t hurt to have a little balance in my life. Giggle.
Seriously though, I feel like this birthday week marks some pretty big growth for me. Those of you who are regular readers will know about some of the big challenges that have forced me to plunge a little deeper into my heart to find out just who it is that resides there and what the source and shape of her strength is. When we open ourselves to it, challenge and struggle will usher in growth and acceptance, and that’s what I’ve seen happening in my own life.
There have been some pretty significant breakthroughs for me in the last two weeks, in my relationship with my body, my relationship with my loved ones, my relationship with food, my relationship with the divine, and my relationship with the core of who I am created to be. As I wrote a few months ago when I was recovering from surgery, I’ve been feeling like a caterpillar who has to give up the life she knows, commit herself to the cocoon, and wait for the transformation to come.
I just learned recently that in the cocoon stage, caterpillars actually break down completely into a gooey gel-like substance that has no resemblance to either caterpillar or butterfly. We have to give it up – whatever we believe ourselves to be – in order to emerge into the beautiful creature we are meant to be.
It’s true, isn’t it, that we are never finished growing? I feel like a sculpture that is forever being molded in the Sculptor’s hands.
There’s a bubbling energy in me this week that feels a little like what the butterfly must feel when she has the dawning awareness that it’s time to break out of the cocoon. I feel strong in ways I didn’t expect to feel strong – physically, emotionally, and spiritually. I’ve been running, biking, praying, doing yoga – and a bunch of other little things that feel like they are helping me step into a new strength. The beautiful life-giving thing about it is, the more I step into this strength and share it with people around me, the more it is returned to me in affirming ways – like a lovely note from a cousin who’s heading out on a solo trip to the Grand Canyon and says it was partly inspired by what I write on this blog!
A month ago, when Marcel was in the hospital, I began to describe myself as a warrior because of the battles I had to fight as his advocate. And in a few weeks, I’ll be in a workshop at ALIA about “leaders as Shambala warriors”. I’ve never really thought of myself as a warrior before (maybe it’s my pacifist roots), and honestly, I often doubt myself as a leader because of some of the struggles I’ve had in this job that usually end up leaving me feeling like a failure. But something is shifting, and I’m trying to step into whatever it is that’s emerging.
No, this week is not about “look how great I am”. It’s more about “there is something powerful in what God is shaping my life to be and I want to celebrate the way I’m growing into it”.
Tomorrow night, our little celebration will include a bra-burning ceremony to mark the transformation to my body (through breast reduction surgery). In a strange and unexpected way, the surgery marked a turning point for me – a moment when I finally gave myself permission to want a new story for my body. It’s all been part of the metamorphosis process – letting go of old stories I tell myself and embracing new truths and new possibilities. I have learned to love myself in a new way since I let go of the weight that was cut off. I have learned to treat my body with new respect and gratitude (thanks in part to Geneen Roth’s book) and I am slowly becoming healthier for it. (I realize that might sound a little twisted – having plastic surgery to learn to love yourself – but it’s working for me.)
What I would really love is this… even though you might not be able to make it to the celebration tomorrow night, I’d be delighted if you would consider marking this week with me, on your blog, on Twitter, or just in the privacy of your own home.
Here’s what I’d like you to do… have a virtual “bra-burning” party! No, you don’t have to burn your bra (unless you want to!), but think of some old story you’re telling yourself about who you are (who you’re supposed to be by other people’s standards, what limits you, what you’re lacking, why you’re a failure), and burn it! Write it down on a piece of paper, light a candle, a lantern, or a big ol’ bonfire and BURN THAT SUCKER! Let it go! Give it up to the fire!
Do it in honour of my 44rd birthday, but more importantly, do it for you!
And take pictures, ’cause I’d love to see all that burnin’ energy!
I’d forgotten about this photo until I unearthed it the other day. I am absolutely IN LOVE with it in a way that I don’t remember being when I first saw it. There were other photos from that day (like the one in my banner) that grabbed me more at the time. (Video here.)
It tells such a great story of the generations of women I’m embedded between. My mother, my daughter (Julie) and me.
I had just jumped out of a plane. Look how incredibly joyous I am! What a moment of pure, intoxicating adrenalin! I finally knew what the sky tasted like!
When I landed, my mom and Julie were the only people to come running across the field to greet me. (My husband followed later with the camera.)
Mom, carrying my chute, supporting me, content to pick up the rear. Proud of me. And not one bit afraid to watch her daughter do something as crazy as jump out of a perfectly good plane. In her heart I know she was a little bit (maybe even a LOT) envious. If there’s one thing I inherited from my mom it is my “adventure junkie” tendencies.
Julie, wearing my helmet, leading me forward, grinning with pride, and also… a whole LOT jealous of me. Of my three daughters, she’s the one voted “most likely to follow her mom’s footsteps and go skydiving some day”. She developed a new dream that day – work at the skydiving place so she could skydive as often as possible. If there’s one thing she inherited from HER mom it is her “adventure junkie” tendencies. (If you watch the video, you’ll hear her eager voice wanting to come rushing to me before the plane landed.)
It just makes me smile to see the story of women as it passes from generation to generation – through my mother to me, and through me to my daughter.
What about you? Why don’t you play along? Show me a picture that tells a story of your generations. Or write about it in the comments.
I’d forgotten about this photo until I unearthed it the other day. I am absolutely IN LOVE with it in a way that I don’t remember being when I first saw it. There were other photos from that day (like the one in my banner) that grabbed me more at the time. (Video