Category Archives: Being Human

Foundation #2: Awareness

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Open hands holding a flower

Foundation #2: Awareness. Bodyfulness + mindfulness = awareness. Awareness is attention. Attend to your life. Tend your soul.
 

Dwell as near as possible to the channel in which your life flows. ~Henry David Thoreau

(Three foundations – embodiment, awareness, and ownership – are fundamental. The four healing shifts – more soul, more acceptance, more intention, and more creation – are powerful. But the shifts without the foundations are like building a house on the sand. I’m diving deeper into these seven facets of healing throughout November and December. You can subscribe here if this was forwarded to you.)

Separating bodyfulness* from mindfulness is helpful, but it’s not truly accurate. We’re intertwined, of course – combined bodies and minds. It’s helpful to separate them, though, when we’re learning to notice our patterns and processes, and to tend ourselves.

Your body, your Earthling body, is your ground of being. We’re feeling creatures who think, says Dr. Jill Taylor Bolte in her new book, Whole Brain Living. Our minds work better when they’re in service to our bodies.  

Now that you’re feeling your body a little more, let’s invite your powerful mind to the dance.

A Silly Story
Years ago, when I was a newby middle school English teacher, I was assigned to coach the school’s Brain Bowl team. I knew absolutely nothing about coaching Brain Bowl. Luckily for me, the Brain Bowl season didn’t start until March, so I could put off dealing with it for months while I learned to teach English. But I could feel my body tense every time my brain remembered Brain Bowl.

I began to picture Brain Bowl as a rattlesnake sleeping under my bed. You really don’t want rattlesnakes under your bed, right? If you’re not going to move out, you simply have to deal with them. Finally I did, by taking the obvious step of asking for help from the relieved senior teacher who’d shunted his unwanted duty onto me. The rattlesnakes under the bed began to slither on out.

That image has endured. I can still feel the frisson of fear running through my body when I imagine rattlesnakes sleeping under my bed. It’s my body’s way of telling me that something important I’d rather not think about needs my attention, and it’s time to deal with it.

Bodyfulness brings my attention to what needs healing. My mind works to understand and heal the sources of suffering.

Trauma
 “The body keeps the score,” says trauma expert Dr. Bessel Van der Kolk. When you bring your attention to your body, when you choose to be mindful of your body, uncomfortable feelings will almost certainly arise. Our bodies are repositories of trauma. Humans sequester scary stuff in our bodies until we can deal with it, so you probably have unprocessed fear stored in your body. As you bring mindful, compassionate attention to your body, these emotions and stuck places will show up.

The good news is that bit by bit you can surface and resolve the trauma. First things first: If what shows up is overwhelming, back off for now and find a trauma-informed therapist to walk beside you. If stored trauma is making itself felt, it’s wanting to be healed. You can do this, and it’s easier and safer with company.  


Adventures in Physical Therapy
 As most of you know, I had surgery on my right hand a couple of months ago. I was sitting doing my seemingly interminable physical therapy Saturday morning while my husband read aloud Richard Rohr’s weekly email. In this email, Fr. Richard references Buddhist psychologist Tara Brach’s “applied meditation” RAIN, about which I have written before. R stands for “recognize,” A for “allow,” I for “investigate,” and N for “nurture.” It’s a powerful practice, and I’ve used it often.

As he was reading about RAIN and I was doing my PT, I recognized that I’ve been treating my hand, which is still quite stiff and swollen, as an enemy. I recognized that I’d been feeling ashamed of my hand’s wounded state. I detested the scars, stiffness, and swelling. That’s a strong word, and it’s also accurate.

(Feeling ashamed of illness, brokenness, and helplessness goes back to my childhood, but it doesn’t matter where it comes from. It’s not necessary to understand the genesis of a thought that causes suffering to begin to unravel its hold.)

My poor hand, to be treated so meanly. I was going through the motions of caring for it – massage, exercise, desensitization – while inwardly resenting the hell out of it.

RAIN helped me see that pattern. That old, deep, fossilized pattern became visible because I recognized the feeling of loathing in my body. Now I can heal the pattern, one PT session at a time.

This week I’ve been practicing breathe prayers while I do my physical therapy. I’ve been breathing in healing and breathing out stiffness. I’ve been breathing in healing and breathing out swelling. I’ve been doing my exercises to the beat of my heart. I’ve been loving on my hand and treating it with compassion. This feels better. 


Pain, and Joy
So far I’ve been talking about the hard stuff that awareness helps us surface and deal with. But consciously practicing bodyfulness and mindfulness leads us not only to our pain, but also to our joy. The sources of our joy will likely be just as irrational as the sources of our pain, when we pay attention to our body’s joy. A warm shower. A walk in the woods. Playing around with words or paint. Purple twinkle lights around the bathroom mirror. Puppy videos on YouTube. Whatever.


A simple practice
Stop what you’re doing. Do a quick body scan from feet to head. What do you notice What sensations do you notice in your body? What emotions do you feel? Are you aware of any thoughts? Take a moment to note what you sensations, emotions, and thoughts on paper or in a notes app. Do this several times each day. Set an alarm on your phone if that would help.

Listen to what your body is telling you, then bring mindfulness to those messages. That’s all awareness is. Start small. Just notice. That’s all. You don’t need to be fancy and formal. Just keep track, somehow, of what you notice. Are there consistent body sensations? Consistent thoughts? Consistent patterns? Just notice.

Bring compassionate awareness to your daily embodied life. Little by little.

If you’d like to talk about any of this, simply “reply” to this email. I’d love to know what you think. 

*I owe the wonderful word “bodyfulness” to Christine Valters Paintner, the abbess of Abbey of the Arts, a virtual contemplative and creative community. See especially The Wisdom of the Body.

Resources
Dr. Tara Brach on Fear and Trauma
Dr. Tara Brach and RAIN
Whole Brain Living, by Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor
The Body Keeps the Score, by Dr. Bessel Van der Kolk
The Wisdom of the Body, by Dr. Christine Valters Paintner

Photo credit: Lina Trochez on Unsplash

Foundation #1: Embodiment

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Baby held in big hands, Anne Geddes

Your body is the only thing you have for your entire life. Know your self as embodied. Know your body. Honor your body. Listen to your body. Celebrate your body.

You come into this world in a little wrinkled body, and you leave in a large wrinkled body … if you’re lucky. ~Wayne Dyer

But gosh, sometimes it’s hard to feel lucky, isn’t it?

Embodiment is the first foundation of my Coaching Intensive for a reason.

The process of disconnecting ourselves from our body begins at birth. We learn not to trust our body’s messages as we’re socialized in a capitalist culture. What your body wants is damned inconvenient for a product-driven, resource-draining patriarchal economy, so you’re taught not to listen to it.

This body-vacating, head-driven way of living is especially true for those of us socialized as women.

As women, we’re taught to be pleasing, which means small, quiet, helpful, compliant, and outwardly-focused. We’re taught that our bodies are not ours to do with as we please, but as others please. Our parents, our teachers and pastors, our husbands, Congress and the Supreme Court, the random dude on the street who ogles our breasts, the plastic surgeon who tells us we should want our pre-baby vagina back — all presume to take ownership of our bodies. After a while, our bodies never feel like ours, except in secret.  

Our body’s voice becomes the enemy’s voice, a voice we have to resist and tame. So we diet, we exercise hard, we ignore our sexual preferences, we hate on our wrinkles and folds. We fit into the small, quiet, helpful, outwardly-focused box labeled “feminine.” This process of disconnecting us from ownership of our bodies has been going on for so long it’s invisible. It’s the air we breathe.   

Abdicating ownership of your body is how you’ve learned to stay safe in a culture which only values your body as a commodity. It’s not your fault.

Stop reading and take a moment. Feel into your body. Is my bleak description accurate to you? Are you angry? Are you sad?

Again, vacating your body—seeing it as an enemy to be vanquished through self-criticism, diets, over-exercise, ignoring its cries for help—is how you’ve stayed safe in a culture that wants your body for its own uses and occasionally uses violence to get it. Being disembodied is not your fault. But, now that you see what you’ve been taught as the lie it most assuredly is, reclaiming your body is your responsibility.

Here’s what’s actually true.

Your body is yours to care for, direct, and enjoy. Yours, and no one else’s. Embodiment, being embodied, fully inhabiting and adoring your sweet pod, is necessary for healing.

Your body doesn’t lie. It only tells the truth. You came into this life only capable of telling the truth. Lying is a skill you acquired as your brain matured, and you became more savvy about how to get along in our sick culture.  

Our minds tell our bodies that only our minds know the truth, and over time we believe the lie. What’s true? When you “let the soft animal of your body love what it loves,” you will turn toward home.

Underneath decades of accreted socialization and associated untruths, there you are. The real you. The embodied you. The you that carries who you really are and what you really want.

That’s why this is where we start. We re-center our knowing in our bodies, because our bodies are where joy, wisdom, and truth live.

Your body is waiting for you. Go home. Go home.

PS. The Body Compass tool is the first thing I teach new clients, and we use it throughout our work together. Contact me to schedule a free no-strings-attached Clarity Call where we can explore how to access your body’s truth-infused wisdom. 

Photo credit: Anne Geddes

The Patron Saint of “Both/And”

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There’s a hidden creek in the Cascades west of Bend that we call “Fairy Moss Creek.” I spent an hour there a couple of days ago, in the company of an American Dipper. (Dippers, also called Water Ouzels, are North America’s only aquatic songbird.)

This dipper’s right leg appears to be useless. She drags it along behind her over moss-covered rocks and through the water as she goes about her dipper business.

The rills aggregating to form Fairy Moss Creek appear out of bare rock just a little way upstream from the downed log on which I’m sitting. An additional creeklet appears to erupt from the top of the ridge across from me, then bubbles down the ridge to join the main stem. It’s up this branch that our dipper moves, hopping from rock to rock, sticking her head into pools and under tiny waterfalls, evidently finding plenty to eat. She’s in no hurry, moving steadily up and up and up, dragging that useless leg behind her. No drama. No angst. Just whole-hearted dipper.

I hear her say that injured things can thrive. Hurt beings can be strong. Imperfect creatures have every right to nutrient-rich habitat. She tells me she’s whole, in spite of her injury. She tells me I’m whole, too.  

Fairy Moss Creek is magical. This dipper is a shaman. And I am a mystic.

The world talks to me on the regular, as it does to all nature mystics.

September 17th is the feast of Hildegard of Bingen, hands down my favorite saint. Hildegard, who lived in the 12th century, was the Queen of Both/And. She was an abbess of a monastery in Bingen in the German Rhineland. She was a healer and theologian. She was an herbalist, a painter, and a writer. She instructed popes while writing music. And that’s just for starters. Hildegard was many things, some of them seemingly contradictory.

I think I admire Hildegard because I have seemingly contradictory parts, too. There’s the left-brained analytical biologist who geeks out on geology, botany, ornithology, and the intricacies of watersheds. And there’s the right-brained intuitive who loves art and poetry and healing, and who receives dipper messages.

For the longest time, I’ve believed I needed to choose between these two worlds. As a kid, I was told that the intuitive me who knew stuff about people, loved narrative and color, and talked to the trees wasn’t practical. That I needed to give her up in order to make my way in the world. That the part of me that would be useful to others and would make my living is the orderly, fact-based part. That we’d all be happier if I would just get over myself, accept the loss of my kaleidoscope life, and settle for black and white.

I’ve found a little “both/and” air to breathe occasionally, while mostly drowning in my inability to choose. My master’s degree is a Both/And: Conservation Biology and Communication. My coach training is Both/And: scientifically rigorous and firmly rooted in the mystical. (Martha Beck, who developed Wayfinder Life Coach Training, is sociologist with a doctorate from Harvard and one of the most mystical women you’ll ever meet.

Like Hildegard, I’m a biologist and a poet, a science nerd and an intuitive, a healer and a theologian. I contain multitudes. And I refuse to accept the culture’s message that I need to choose.

I know there’s more to this world than meets the eye. I believe in that deep womb-heart I felt on the Camino. I get messages all the damn time from rivers and rocks and birds. That I can also tell you the story of the basalt rock we’re sitting on at the time, identify the bird you’re hearing in the trees (and the trees), regale you with interesting facts about that bird, and tell you where the river’s headwaters are, only adds to my joy. I hope it adds to yours, too.

I’m claiming my both/and life. I’m choosing my integrity and wholeness, and to hell with the culture that says I can’t have both.  

PS. Interested in more about Hildegard? The Abbey of the Arts is offering a retreat on Hildegard’s feast day. Here’s more information.

Three more ways crappy theology causes suffering.

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Open gate leading to sun-filled meadow

Last week I wrote about three ways I see crappy theology cause suffering for my clients. These lies, taught to us by (usually) well-meaning people, are in there so deep we don’t recognize them as made-up ideas that just aren’t true.

We know they’re not true because they cause us to suffer.

In case you missed it, here are the first three lies.

Lie #1: Jesus died for your sins. On the contrary, God and Jesus aren’t concerned about how you in your wickedness are breaking their rules. What they are concerned about is how much you love yourself, each other, and the world. The only sin is failing to love.

Lie #2: God despises the world and “things of the flesh.” On the contrary, God IS the world. The world is made of God. As the bumper sticker puts it: The Earth is my church. My body is the altar.

Lie #3: God has a plan for your life, and your job is to figure it out and follow it. On the contrary, Creator God is always at work, and all She wants from you is to be the fullest version of yourself you can be, right now, at this moment.

Three more lies:

Lie #4: You need to be perfect, as God is perfect.  On the contrary, beloved, God wants you to be yourself in all your miraculous messiness. God loves your messiness.

The word translated as “perfect” in many versions of the Bible (Matthew 5:48) would be better translated as “whole.” (I like Eugene Peterson’s rendering in The Message: “In a word, what I’m saying is, Grow up. You’re kingdom subjects. Now live like it. Live out your God-created identity. Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you.”)

Being human is messy and unpredictable, and you’re making yourself crazy and miserable when you try to be perfect. As Anne Lamott says: “Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life ….” Be whole instead, beloved. Be whole.

Lie #5: Following your heart and your desires is evil, and being “selfish” is bad. On the contrary, beloved, your desires are holy and necessary. God wants you to want what you want.

When we believe that wanting something is bad, we fight against ourselves and our deepest longings. Instead of honoring our soul’s yearnings, we talk ourselves out of them and we lose ourselves in the process. This is an especially insidious one for women, who are expected to be the caretakers of the world while staffing bake sales, cleaning toilets, and never ever saying NO. (I am NOT saying to act out every desire you have. What I am saying is that every desire has wisdom for you. Honor that wisdom. Listen for it.)

It’s a cliché, I know, and it’s still true: Put on your own oxygen mask first. Only then will you be full enough to give when it’s your turn to give.

Lie #6: God is outside of you, “up there” somewhere, separate from this messy world and its pain. On the contrary, beloved, God is Mother, here with us.

God is not “the man upstairs” or the spirit in the sky. God is not our Father in Heaven. 

When we believe this lie, we make the disembodied sacred and the bodied profane. We make spirit good and flesh bad. We then look outside ourselves for guidance and answers, and we avoid our adult responsibility to listen for the Wisdom within. We’re incapable of giving our gifts freely, because we’ve forgotten who we are.

God your Mother inhabits your everyday moments. She is as common as dirt. And She loves your body like a mother.

Oh, my beloveds. These lies cause so much suffering. They leave us contorted and stuck and so self-critical we’re paralyzed with shame and self-loathing.

You can feel their destructive power when you hold them in your body. Try saying one lie and notice how your body feels. Now say the truth (use my “On the contrary … “ formulation or your own words) and notice how your body feels. Lies cause suffering. Can you feel how you stop suffering when you disbelieve the lies causing you to suffer?

Beloved, you are not called to suffer. Being human on Earth is full of pain. Being human on Earth is full of joy, too.

Please take your suffering seriously. Look underneath your suffering and find the crappy theology causing it. We can do that together if you want to.

Heal crappy theology and you heal yourself.

We need you whole, healthy, and healed. We need you telling the truth. We need you raising your voice in the wilderness so we can find each other.

PS. A deep bow of gratitude to you voices in the wilderness who joined our inaugural Community Conversation on June 17. We were witnesses for each other’s pain and joy, and we formed deep community almost from the first moment. I’m so grateful to meet you “face to face,” and look forward to our next gathering on Tuesday, July 13, at 2:00 pm Pacific. Newsletter subscribers will get the Zoom link the day before. Missed the first one? No worries. You can join anytime.

PPS. I’ll be sending emails only to my weekly letter list beginning on July 1st. Email subscribers will get new content, current offerings, and notifications of upcoming events delivered straight to their inbox. You can subscribe here, and thanks!

Photo by Nikola Knezevic on Unsplash

Blessed are the nice, for they shall be liked.

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Girl sitting in a field of flowers with the sun shining on her

The problem with living from your soul is that other people don’t like it.

Last week I wrote to you about the first healing shift I teach my clients: more soul, less façade. I gave you lots of high-falutin’ reasons why soul-based living is better than going through the façade-based motions of living.

But it’s hard at first, isn’t it? Making this shift can be hard because we’re afraid of our loved ones’ reactions. And even strangers’ reactions, to be honest. And we’re all about honesty around here.

If you’re worried about what other people will think or how other people will react when you start living from your soul and telling the truth, you’re not alone. You’re just human, with a human brain.

Culture, a web of constructed social systems, depends on its members caring what other people think. We’re taught to be nice from the cradle. Especially women living in a patriarchy.

Not only are we trained into scoping outward for approval, we’re also hard-wired internally for belonging. Our brains have evolved to fear disapproval and disconnection, because to be cast out of the group back in hunter-gatherer days was almost certainly to die. Our ancestors who cared deeply about belonging to the group lived to reproduce, while those who flouted the group norms were left to die lonely, hungry deaths on the savannah.

Hence our brains that go batshit crazy when they think we’re going to be disapproved of. Disapproval = death, at least to that part of our brains. And that part of our brain screams like a banshee.

Here’s how that shift and its accompanying fear are playing out in my own life right now. I know some of you will relate.

I’ve quit church. This goes deeper than COVID-related church attendance restrictions. I’ve begun checking the “none” box on surveys that ask about religious affiliation, because the “Christian” box no longer fits.

Leaving church has been easier during the pandemic, but the jig is about to be up. Come this fall, when it’s safe to do so, those who want to will be able to attend church in person again. I will not be among them. If history is any guide, this will be “a thing.”

I don’t know why it’s so important to members of my husband’s parish that I attend church. All I know is that when I’ve taken sabbaticals in the past, folks get worked up. I think sometimes this is just affection and concern for my welfare. But when someone I don’t even know asks Jed’s parish administrator, “Is Barb sick? I haven’t seen her lately,” something else is going on. They ask Jed where I am and if I’m okay. Parishioners see me out and about and say how much they’ve missed me. It’s a thing. Maybe it’s more of a thing in my brain than in real life. The result is the same.

My fear of others’ reaction has kept me silently complicit and out of my integrity for years now. My truth: I will no longer sit silently in the pew while God is referred to as “He,” texts are read that perpetuate violence against women, and our holy Earth is denigrated.

My husband does his heroic best to mitigate these messages with his preaching and his presence. He does as much as he can, within the constraints of his ordination. It’s no longer enough for me. Patriarchal, misogynist, dualistic language and doctrines are built into the structure of the institutional church. The institution seems unwilling to look seriously at the damage it’s done and continues to do.

I’m over it. When I imagine sitting inside a church on Sunday morning, my body feels icky – tense, hunched over, closed down. And when I imagine mountain church or river church, I feel strong, free, and peaceful. I feel happy.

Because my happiness matters to me, I choose myself and my priorities over being nice and propping up this harmful system with my presence. By the way, this is the same choice Jesus made – to speak his truth and live his integrity. His choice led him to the cross. Mine only leads to braving my own discomfort and judgment of others.

So, my friends. This shift from façade to soul with regard to church is scary for me. Jed and I have had some uncomfortable conversations. He supports my decision while also feeling the loss of my presence on Sunday mornings. More uncomfortable conversations are probably heading my way as we emerge from our Covid cocoons. And that’s okay. I can handle them, because I’m confident in my decision. My body is telling me the truth, and I believe her.

These are the trials and the rewards of integrity, of living more from my soul and less from my façade. I feel more scared, while also feeling more powerful, whole, and free. That’s how this goes.

When you make this shift and people don’t like it, that just means you’re doing it right.

PS. Want to talk more about the four healing shifts and coaching together? I offer a free, no-strings-attached clarity call. Contact me here to schedule. I’d love to connect!

PPS. My newsletter is where I share the latest updates, like new coaching offerings, classes, workshops, and easy ways to work together. I send it weekly, and I promise never to spam you or share your address. Your info is safe with me.

Photo by Melissa Askew on Unsplash

More soul. Less façade.

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Girl blowing out candles on a birthday cake

If you want to heal, you must live more from your soul and less from your façade. This is the first of four healing shifts I teach to my coaching clients.

I came face to face with this reality again on our recent Grand Canyon pilgrimage. I saw again, more deeply than before, how my insatiable search for safety after my dad died was driven by my social self. My façade. The part of me that desperately wanted to feel secure, and thought that following the rules and keeping everyone around me happy was the way to do that.

Our façade has many names. Martha Beck calls this part of us, constructed in response to social expectations that begin virtually at birth, our “social self.” Franciscan and prolific author Richard Rohr calls it our “false self.” Jungian James Hollis calls it our “psyche.” Buddhist teacher and psychologist Tara Brach calls it our “spacesuit self.” It’s the part of us that speaks in “should” and “have to.” The part that strives to be nice at all costs.

Our facades will never know peace. Only our souls know peace.

We all have facades. Our facades are necessary. Our social selves keep society’s gears running smoothly. Our social selves help us navigate four-way stops and dentist appointments. Our façade, our social self, the part that looks outside ourselves for direction and approval, has its place.

Maintaining our façade, our social self, requires energy. Façades, because they’re constructed and flimsy like false store fronts in old Western movies, take work to keep up. This is why many of my clients run out of steam in their middle decades. They’ve been working so hard to be who everyone outside themselves expects them to be, that they hit a wall.

The first half of life is often about running around accumulating identities – credentials, careers, achievements. The second half of life is often when we shed this surface stuff, because maintaining it takes energy we just don’t want to expend anymore.

This feeling of running out of steam, of hitting a wall, is commonly known as a “midlife crisis.” It’s when women wake up, look around at the life they’ve created with their choices, and decide to recommit to themselves and their priorities.

What’s the alternative to living from your façade?

Living from your soul. Your soul is sturdy, rooted, and peaceful. Your soul is who you came into this life as. The same teachers listed above also have many names for the soul: “True self.” “Essential self.” “Authentic self.” Your soul says “I want to” and “I yearn for.” Your soul craves real, kind, and good, not nice. 

Parker Palmer calls our soul the “taproot,” the part of us that connects us to what James Hollis calls the Divine Energy. Since my Camino vision of God as a deep Wombish Heart, I imagine my soul as an umbilical cord connecting me to that Divine Energy, my source and nourishment.

Your metaphor for your soul will be personal to you. You may have many metaphors for your soul. I hope you do, because something this foundational is too important to contain with only one label.

How do you know if you’re living from your façade or living from your soul?

They feel different in your body.

When we’re situated in and identified with our social selves, we won’t feel peaceful. When our social selves are driving the bus, we feel graspy. Anxious. Unrooted and ungrounded. And fearful.

Remember a time in your life when you experienced deep peace. What sensations did you feel in your body? That’s your soul’s signature. Hold onto that knowing. 

So what? Why does this matter?

Learning to discern whether you’re living from soul or façade is foundational to healing. When you choose to redirect your precious energy and attention away from maintaining your façade, when you focus instead on relearning the contours of your soul and regaining trust in yourself, you will, inevitably, recommit to your life and your priorities.

When you recommit to your life and your priorities, you bring your authentic, whole, messy self with all her strength, knowledge, and compassion to our shared world.

We don’t need you to be nice. We need you to be who you are, fully and honestly. We need you to bring your gifts to this wild party!

(For a light-hearted cinematic take on this shift, check out “Legally Blonde,” now streaming on Netflix.)

Want to explore this shift more deeply? Contact me to schedule a free, no-strings-attached conversation about coaching together. I’d love to connect! 

For my latest news about coaching, workshops, and pop-up opportunities, subscribe to my newsletter here. While this blog is great, my newsletter is where I go a little deeper into what I’m up to in my coaching practice, and how we can hang out together.

(Photo by Jorge Ibanez on Unsplash)

The Espaliered Woman

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Espaliered apple tree
An espaliered apple tree at the Chicago Botanic Garden

You’ve probably seen them. They’re often apple or pear trees, planted right up against a wall, limbs twined onto wires so they’re flat against the wall. The trees still bear fruit, but they take up much less space.

These trees are espaliered.

I used to admire them. Such pretty trees splayed out against brick walls. Now I feel sorry for them.

What would that feel like – to want to grow, to bud and fruit, but instead to be trained and pruned, wired and flattened, so you didn’t take up so much space and you look beautiful? How handy for the gardener – for his tree to be small and orderly, but still produce fruit.

The tree herself is still wild, yearning to grow, to stretch her strong branches up to the sky in search of sun. To be nourished from her deep, wild roots. To feel her leaves unfurl and buds form, and to feel the power of forming fruit.

And along comes a gardener (all the gardeners shown espaliering apple trees in my web search appear to be male) who thinks, I’m gonna make me a tree that still gives me fruit but that is well-behaved, by golly.

So the tree is pruned and wired and trained for maximum fruit production and minimum encroachment into the gardener’s territory.

An espaliered tree is an apt metaphor for the contrast between our social, culturally-constructed selves and our true wild nature.

The wild tree is our true nature – our essential, instinctual Self gifted to us at birth. Those wires and pruning and snipping off of anything that doesn’t fit the preference of the gardener, well, that’s the false, social self at work.

We all have false, social selves. Personas. They’re the costumes we wear to fit in, get along, stay safe, and make others happy. They’re part of being human. Our social selves are necessary. They keep us out of the street and out of jail. The trouble comes when we aren’t able to choose when to wear them anymore – when we forget that we’re wearing a disguise. Then these selves become rigid, too-small skins. Trapped inside them, we slowly suffocate.

We all wear masks in order to go along and get along and navigate the culture we’re in. And thankfully we all have, somewhere deep down inside, who we truly are: that elemental, essential, instinctual wild Self who carries our knowing, our purpose, and our passions.

For many of us, there comes a time when we realize we’ve lost touch with who we really are, at root. We realize we’ve let ourselves be espaliered – pruned, flattened, trained in straight lines. Beautiful to the eye of the gardener, for whom we’ve produced abundant fruit. We exist for him, and not for ourselves.

At this point, unlike the tree, we human women have a choice. Choosing to remain espaliered has its rewards: shelter, warmth, less risk of damage to those precious limbs. Many women will choose to remain safe within the castle walls.

Others of us will come to understand that to remain espaliered is equivalent to choosing death. We will pull ourselves free from the wires and away from the wall. We will return to our wild root stock. We will become feral, unsafe, free-ranging and open to the elements. We probably won’t produce as many apples, but other rewards will take their place. Wild birds will make their nests in our newly-craggy branches. Fierce badgers will den in our roots.

We will be who we are, again. We will be becoming who we’re meant to be, again. 

Here’s one way to feel the difference between your social self and your essential self. (This is a riff on the Body Compass, a foundational tool for Wayfinder Life Coaches and their clients.)

Imagine yourself as an espaliered tree. Become the tree. Feel the wall at your back. Feel your limbs tied to the wires running in straight lines. Feel the urge to send out unruly shoots. Feel them snipped off by the gardener. Feel him admiring your rule-following prettiness and fertility. What do you notice in your body? Choose three words to describe this feeling of being espaliered.

Now take three deep breaths and shake your body. Move the energy of espalier through your body and let that shit go.

Finally, imagine yourself as a wild tree. Become the tree. Feel your wild roots deep in the soil. Feel your sturdy trunk. Feel your strong limbs spread and stretch for the sun. Feel new shoots sprout all along your limbs. Feel your leaves unfurl and your buds form. Feel the buds solidify and become fruit. Feel the fruit become heavier and heavier. Feel the birds build nests in your limbs, and the badger make a home in the space between your deep, sheltering roots. There is space for all. What do you notice in your body now? Choose three words to describe this feeling.

Which tree feels stronger? Which tree feels more powerful? Which tree would you rather be?  

When you’re living and making choices from your social, culturally-constrained self, your body will tell you. You will feel more like the espaliered tree. And when you live and make choices rooted in your wild, essential Self, your body will feel more like the wild tree.


Did you try this exercise? I’d love to hear about it. Contact me here or leave a comment below. Thank you! 

PS. I’m transitioning to sending email newsletters rather than blog posts. If you’d like to receive fresh content as well as information about my latest offerings, please subscribe. You can subscribe on the form in the sidebar here. In my newsletter, I go a little deeper into one of the four touchstones I use in my work with clients, and suggest a practice, exercise, or journal prompt to explore it further.

(Photo credit: Chicago Botanic Garden)