SALT

“The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears, or the sea.”

- Isak Dinesen

I cannot begin to tell you how many times this quote has carried me through the waves of life. This chapter however, is about the reclamation period that follows the tears and the sweat and returns us to the sea of ourselves. 

My energy shifted a lot this spring and brought me back home to my work in a new capacity. The shift came through a funny channel, as it usually does. I took a break from my day to day coaching work and became a PE/Health teacher for grades K-5 for four months. It was wildly hysterical and I found myself belly laughing on most days. I mean, who wouldn’t? The cast of characters that I met on this spring sabbatical were full of life, fresh perspective, and the contagion of energy was abound. There was joy, laughter, all of the emotions, and a whole lot of hope wrapped up in the every day game of dodgeball. 

Isn’t it funny how we forget about parts of ourselves until we have the opportunity to access them? For me, it was teaching. It has been a beat since I have been in a classroom or worked in this capacity. But I assure you, there was no magic lost, and it is as if my soul remembered exactly where we left off. 

I am grateful for this opportunity to have tried something new, and hey maybe I will do it again. I trust that the universe will put me exactly where she needs me to be. However, I think that chapter of sweat reignited exactly what it was supposed to. 

I am back coaching with vigor, joy, and excitement for what, dare I say, the salt medicine of life, has unearthed in me once again. 

I hope this message finds you deeply well with your toes in the sand and a little belly laughter for your soul. 

Let’s rise,

ah

Trust where the flow of life is taking you,

she knows the way. 

-ah

Who are you?

Who are you?

It is hard to ask this question without beginning it with, “but first, who did you have to be?”

The age old wisdom of “be who you are” is a hard concept to grasp when you have been conditioned so far away from that truth. We receive familial conditioning away from who we authentically are from such a young age. We learn what is expected from us, how to act, when to speak or not speak, and more often than people are willing to speak about, there is trauma involved. We are then conditioned in school and societally about ways in which we will or won’t be received in this world. In summary, we learn how to survive.

There comes a time though, when we perhaps look in the mirror and feel this pang of sadness. Are we being who we are meant to be? I think life hits us upside the head literally and figuratively and pushes us to ask these questions. We find ourselves in patterns or relationships we no longer want, jobs we don’t want to do, or even entire careers that weren’t our idea to begin with.

So, then what? We begin unlearning.

This is a vulnerable process. To learn that we haven’t been true to ourselves can wreck us a bit. It unleashes this truth that can bring rise to a variety of emotions. We can feel tremendous grief for the child or person we were that couldn’t speak up or that endured pain. We can feel sadness that the life we have built isn’t the life that we want, and there can be shame in that too. We are taught to want certain things. You have heard it, white picket fence, career, 2.5 kids, probably a dog or at minimum a fish.

Maybe you have found yourself restless. There is likely a buried truth. Something that you want more of or to do, hell, to create! Imagine if we allowed ourselves to discover rather than cover! Imagine.

There are some caveats to this discovery though, as coming to terms with how we feel usually requires some sort of action. It is why people generally steer clear from this kind of work, until they reach a breaking point. This kind of discovery elicits a lot of fear and fear loves to back baby back into the corner.

In order to become our fully embodied selves we have to be able to root into a sense of security, a sense of safety and agency. Sometimes this isn’t possible in our current situation. Finding a trusted professional can help, or a friend who has the capacity to hear your truth. To be a fully embodied version of ourselves requires us to be free. And damn if it isn’t hard in this world to claim our own freedom. There are so many oppositions to that voice of truth. I assure you though, you are meant to live and exist as the most divinely liberated version of yourself. It just may take some time to excavate them.

Acknowledge what is aching within you to be free.

1. Honor what you had to learn to survive and who you had to become to do so.

2. Write a letter to yourself, express the truth of how you feel.

3. Seek support if you are ready to create the changes in your life that you desire to.

You are not alone on your journey to becoming your authentic self. I am rooting for you.

Stay well out there.

Let’s rise,

ah

The Tipping Point

You know, it’s funny, and a bit scary, that it often takes a major catalyst in our lives to bring about the deep and necessary change needed for us to begin to embark on a journey towards our own evolution. Sure, there is the patriarchal prescription for how we are supposed to live our lives, and believe me, I won’t bore you with those details. However, most of us grow up unable to abide by them. We question our identity, sexuality, gender, profession, and god damnit do we spend far too long trying to remain unseen for who we truly are.

Well, I believe there comes a tipping point. A moment when we are sitting upon a horizon, sure, we could “go back” maybe… maybe. But we know there is no life for us there. OR we can choose to jump in, engage with what is truly ours to claim and begin to dance with our own destiny. 

Have you ever found yourself in a room you have been in 100x, surrounded by very familiar people, but on that particular day, in that particular moment thought, “I don’t belong here anymore.” The tipping point is like that. It makes herself very visible in our bodies. There becomes a knowing, an itch, a craving for more. The knowing that you are meant to do something bigger. And bigger doesn’t have to feel paralyzing, as it often does when we put so much pressure on ourselves. But bigger simply means becoming our true and authentic selves.

Is there something you have always wanted to do but somehow learned that you couldn’t? It is that. It is that whisper that starts to come back and almost haunts us. Yes, I know, it chooses less than ideal moments to rear her head. Like on your wedding day, or when you are accepted to a school you thought you wanted to go to, or a job transfer pops up. Again, not ideal, but that is our intuitive voice that says, “please for the love of God finally choose yourself, choose your path.”

Life throws so many curves, some louder than others. Much of the external we don’t have control over. Yet, we have control over our choices. (I don’t mean in extreme circumstances when you are truly surviving, so I am not bypassing those situations.) I am talking more about when you make a choice from a place of scarcity, fear, or “should” do. When you choose the safe choice because we are taught to do that, safety is in the box. We are presented with so many options and ways in which we can choose ourselves moment to moment or we can choose to abandon what is aching within us. But damn, we somehow or another always figure out which one we chose, sometimes in hindsight. 

I do believe there comes a point though, and I don’t know if it is age, parenthood, life transitions, or what it is, but eventually we come to a fork in the road where we absolutely cannot choose anything else but ourselves any longer otherwise we cease to exist as we know it. The air leaves us. We know, that if we try to muddle our way through inauthentically any longer it will surely swallow us whole. Everything in us begins to wilt.

Well wildflower, you deserve air, sunlight, and a lot of water. You deserve to blossom and grow any way that you choose. This life isn’t meant for containment, it is meant for deep expansion. Your expansion.

Note your tipping points lately…

are you listening?

Your tipping point might just change your life.

Let it.

Be you.

Let’s rise,

ah