Category Archives: Coaching Tools

Safety is a feeling, not a fact.

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Bare feet overlooking the Grand Canyon

This week’s newsletter is the “to be continued” from last week’s story about my dad’s accidental death, my grief, and our Grand Canyon pilgrimage. (You can read last week’s newsletter here. Thank you for your many responses and well-wishes!)

Friends, I did not get to sit with my brother where he deposited my dad’s ashes 41 years ago. Here’s why. The road out to South Bass trailhead goes through the Havasupai Indian Reservation. The Havasu, like many Tribes, have been decimated by COVID and have closed all access. When we arrived at the boundary between the Park and the Reservation, we found a locked gate. My brother, who’s not in the best of health, and my sister-in-law stayed behind while Jed and I resorted to Plan B – a short hike down the Grandview trail, a trail I hiked many times in my youth with my dad.

I thought I was going to the Canyon to be with my dad and say good-bye. It turns out the Canyon was calling me home to myself.

I hiked in the Canyon (no one native to northern Arizona calls it the “Grand Canyon”) with my dad at least two or three times a year throughout my teens.  As I remember, those hikes were long, hot, dusty, and beautiful, but not hard.

Outside the Canyon, my teenage years were hard. My parents divorced when I was twelve, which meant the loss of more than a family. My mom then married a man who consistently and intentionally violated my body’s boundaries and was emotionally abusive to me. My alcoholic dad also remarried, three more times.

But I was still okay. I handled the bad shit by putting it in a bubble and ignoring it. I was resilient. I had good friends. I was simply waiting out the crazy around me, waiting for my chance to live my own life. I still mostly knew who I was and what I wanted.

My dad’s sudden, random death changed that. It was the final straw. I finally lost track of myself that day. I see, in retrospect, that his death destroyed my childish faith in a benevolent Universe.

I began to seek safety above all else.

I’m not alone in seeking safety. Many of my clients strive for safety. They yearn for something different and deeper in their lives. For new countries and old dreams. But they’re smart. They know that renewing their commitment to their lives and their priorities, reclaiming the fierceness and passion they felt as girls and young women, requires change. And change isn’t safe. Telling the truth to themselves and their partners, asking for what they want, will potentially blow their current lives up.

Here’s what I comprehended sitting 1000 feet below the South Rim of the Grand Canyon: I am still that girl who knew who she was. I am still the strong, capable, smart, resilient girl who loved the rocks and the trees and the birds. That’s true.

And two of the ways I’ve defined myself, as the victim of both sexual abuse and cosmic father robbery, are lies. They’re NOT true, and believing them causes suffering.

Yes, those things happened. They happened to me. I did not choose them. I did not control them. And, although I didn’t know it, what I’ve made them mean all these decades was actually within my control and power. What I choose to make them mean going forward is my decision and mine alone.

It turns out this trip was about facing and deconstructing wispy identities that aren’t solid enough to sustain me, and that obscure my integrity.

The Grand Canyon is solid. I was solid. I’m still solid. There’s bedrock in me, as solid and reliable as the Vishnu Schist, the Redwall, the Coconino Sandstone.

But my never-ending search for safety dammed my flow as surely as Glen Canyon Dam has turned the roiling, muddy, floody Colorado into a placid, useful river.

We’re taught to look for safety outside ourselves. Especially as women living in a patriarchy, we’re taught that following the rules and submitting to masculine culture’s expectations will keep us safe.

And then there’s religion. I think traditional religion’s biggest promise is the promise of safety: God has a plan, and It’s all in His hands. Here are the rules that will keep you safe. If you follow the rules, you’ll go to heaven when you die. Etc., etc., etc. (If that’s working for you, rock on!)

But here’s the thing: looking for safety outside ourselves will never work. The world is not safe. We live in time-limited flesh and blood bodies that hit trees, get cancer, or die in a myriad of other ways. If we’re lucky, we finally just wear out. Bad shit happens. All the damn time.

Safety is a feeling, not a fact. Feelings are created by our thoughts. So the only way to feel safe is to think thoughts that create that feeling.

I’m not talking about denial or positive thinking. I’m talking about healing your foundational worldview and seeing the world and yourself differently. I’m talking about Intentionally choosing thoughts that create an authentic feeling of safety. Thoughts rooted in a worldview that makes sense to you, that you actually believe in.

As I sat in my body on a rock below the rim of the Canyon, the same body that last traveled this trail forty-two years ago, I remembered what I used to know: I am strong. I am resilient. I am creative. I can fucking handle anything.

These thoughts are rooted in my deep belief that the world is holy. My body is made of this incredibly beautiful world and will return to it when I die, therefore I’m holy, too.

These thoughts are rooted in my grown-up understanding that to be alive is to change, and change is holy, too.

These thoughts are rooted in my experience. I have handled so much pain, been swaddled in so much joy, and reveled in so much beauty in these sixty plus years. I’ve loved and been loved so deeply. I’ll bet you have, too.

I have grown-up faith in this sustaining, incredibly generous universe.

Want to explore your bedrock, your dams, and your dreams? Reach out here to schedule a free no-obligation conversation. I’d love to connect.

My newsletter is where I share my latest news: coaching offerings, pop-up workshops, guest posts, etc. You can subscribe here.

Photo credit: Barb Morris, 16 April 2021.

The Dip is coming. Are you ready?

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Pilgrims leaving St. Jean Pied de Port on the Camino de Santiago

These pilgrims are on the first day of their Camino. They think this is the hardest day. They think that if they can do this ridiculously grueling day, they’ll be in good shape. They’re almost certainly wrong.

The first day of the Camino de Santiago Francés is about 15 miles long, an average day on the Camino. That’s hard enough for new pilgrims. What makes it especially hard is the vertical gain followed by an equally steep downhill, over the Pyrenees from France into Spain.

My husband and I walked the Camino’s 500 miles across northern Spain to Santiago de Compostela in 37 days, averaging 13 miles daily. As many pilgrims do, we started our Camino in St. Jean Pied de Port at the foot of the French Pyrenees. We walked up and up and up and up, all day, to Col de Lepoeder, the top of the pass through the Pyrenees, a vertical gain of more than a mile, then down the other side.

Jed and I, being Oregonians and used to mountains, didn’t find the uphill particularly difficult. It was the downhill that got me. By the time we arrived at the Roncesvalles albergue (albergues are special hostels for pilgrims in Spain), my feet and ankles were in agony. I took off my boots to find bumps, bruises, and blisters that persisted for the entire 37 days we walked, and for months after.

Some pilgrims choose to skip this traditional hazing ritual, and start instead in Roncesvalles on the Spanish side of the Pyrenees. (Or in Pamplona, as the heroine of my novel does.)

I knew the first day would be hard. I knew what to expect. I thought that making it across the Pyrenees in one (admittedly bruised and battered) piece meant I had this thing licked and it was all smooth sailing from here. I was definitely wrong.

Why?

It’s a thing Seth Godin calls “the Dip” in his book of the same name. Teachers call it the “messy middle.” Wayfinder Life Coaches know it as “Square Three.”

The basic principle is this: anything worth doing becomes muddled and hard at some point. This is “the Dip.” There comes a point where the first blush of enthusiasm has worn off, the goal is still a very long way ahead, and the journey becomes a slog. This is when people quit.

Let me say that again: any important goal, anything worth doing—education, relationships, parenthood, your dream job, learning to play the guitar, walking 500 miles across Spain—gets hard at some point.

The first day of the Camino was ridiculous. The first week continued to be physically gruelling, but walking The Way of St. James was still fresh, new, and interesting. I still felt enthusiastic about this bananas thing we were doing.

But Day 10? Well. By then I was tired of suffering for no apparent purpose. Tired of sleeping in communal dorms and washing in communal showers and walking on bruised and blistered feet for miles every day. I had lost my enthusiasm.

Most pilgrims who quit the Camino don’t do it in the first week. No. They quit in the middle. They hit the Dip and they don’t have the resources to keep going. (This is why the Camino is a pilgrimage, not just a nice walk in the Spanish countryside. You meet yourself—who you really are and what you really want—on the Camino.)

The Dip is when you decide if this thing you committed to doing is really something you want to do. The Dip is when you choose, or not, to keep putting one foot in front of the other because the destination waiting for you at the other end is so amazing that it’s worth this suffering.

The Camino de Santiago Francés is 500 miles long. Most pilgrims take 30 to 40 days. That leaves a long time in the middle where it really is just putting one foot in front of the other, because Santiago is still hundreds of miles down a very dusty road.

The goal seems unreachable. What you’re doing seems loco. I mean, come on. Really? Walking somewhere when you could drive it in one really long day? What’s up with that? It’s crazy. You’re tired. You’re dirty. You’re sore. It’s just not a rational thing to do.

Many of the things we deeply want to do aren’t rational.

The Dip is real. Know it’s coming. Expect it. Prepare for it. Make a plan to navigate it. If you know you don’t have the resources to get through the Dip, don’t start.

This is the choice I had to make. Walking the Camino for Jed wasn’t going to cut it. I had to do it for me, or not do it at all. I had to walk my own walk, or not walk at all. I was going to end up hating my husband if I continued suffering for him. I had to choose the Dip. I had to commit to MY Camino. I had to say, “I’m doing this, for me.”

What got me through the Dip? My husband’s dogged determination. Companions on the Way. The hard-core mystical energy of a path that’s been trodden by prayerful, strong people for a thousand years. My coaching skills and practice working with my thoughts. Walking one day at a time and celebrating my progress, slow as it felt. Marking intermediate milestones: Pamplona, Burgos, León, El Cruz de Ferro, every mountain pass. Two experiences of the Holy that told me I was where I needed to be.

Is there something you want to do? Be ready for the Dip. Plan for it. Assess your resources and marshal your reserves. Ask for help navigating the Dip. If that help might be me, check out my new “Get Your Thing Done” coaching package here. I’d love to connect.  

PS. If you’ve read this far, you’re a dedicated blog-follower. I’d love it if you’d subscribe to my newsletter, which will soon replace this blog completely.

Photo credit: Jed Holdorph, 6 May 2014

Stupid Fear or Wise Resistance?

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There’s a thing you want to do, or believe you should do, or are being told you need to do, and you just don’t get it done. What’s that about?

When you’ve had an item on your to-do list for weeks or months or even years, and it just gets heavier and heavier, saps more and more of your energy and confidence, what’s that about?

When you just aren’t getting the thing done, is it possible you’re not just a lazy dumb slacker? Is it possible that you’re being wise, rather than just stupidly afraid?

There are plenty of wise reasons for not doing a thing.

Maybe this is a thing you shouldn’t do. Maybe it isn’t yours to do. Maybe you’re not ready yet. Maybe you really do need more information. Maybe you decided to do this thing when you were a different person – a naïve person, a more easily influenced person, a person who didn’t yet know what she wanted.

Maybe you’re just not ready to accept the changes this dream entails.

Maybe you have other priorities just now, and this thing isn’t as important. Maybe you’re not afraid of doing the actual thing, but of the overwhelm you’ll feel if you take it on.

I think we judge ourselves for not doing the thing we say we want to do. We jump to beating ourselves up for feeling afraid, or being lazy, or just not having what it takes to reach our goals.

But what if the reluctance you’re feeling isn’t stupid fear, but wise resistance?

How do you tell the difference? Here’s one way that works for me and my clients.

1. Bring to mind that thing that’s nagging you. That thing you’ve had on your list for so long. That dream you’ve been yearning to make real.

Really inhabit this possible future. Let yourself, in your imagination, live into the reality of doing the thing. Give yourself time to fully be there.  

2. Notice what’s going on in your body. (Yes, there’s the body again!)

There you are, having run the marathon, written the book, gotten the divorce, cleaned the basement. Whatever your thing is, you’ve done it.

3. How do you feel? What’s going on with your breath? What’s going on with your belly? What’s going on with your neck and your shoulders? What’s your expression?

Do you feel light or heavy? Do you feel warm or cold? Do you feel relaxed or stressed? Do you feel open or closed?  

What we’re looking for here, when you’re in your body imagining having done the thing that’s calling you, is whether you feel fundamentally expanded or contracted.

4. If you feel mostly expanded, opened up, lighter and warmer, these are signs that you really do want to do this thing. To create this thing. To make this dream into reality. Your reluctance is mostly stupid fear. And you probably want to move beyond your fear-based obstacles.

On the other hand, if you feel mostly contracted, colder, tighter, and heavier when you’re imaginatively inhabiting the future where you’ve gotten your thing done, these are signs that this thing you’ve got on your list should be crossed off, if possible. Your reluctance is mostly wise resistance.

Your body is telling you the truth.

Now you know if your reluctance is mostly wise resistance or stupid fear, and you can make an informed choice.

You have three options: do the thing now, commit to doing it later, or let it go.

So what will you choose? Will you intentionally put that thing in a “parking lot” and come back to it later? Will you let go of it for good? (I suggest ritualizing your letting go, so the thing feels well and truly done.)

Or will you choose to work with your fear, go beyond it, and finally do your thing?

If you’ve concluded that you really want to do the thing now, keep reading.

I’m developing a four-session coaching package devoted to getting your thing done. This package is focused on doing just one thing. It comes with pre-session focus and alignment questions, between-session check-ins, science- and soul-based tools and exercises for every step of the journey, and lots of private time with me.

If you’ve ever wondered if coaching is right for you, this is a perfect way to find out. Because this package is under construction and so tightly focused, I’m offering it at a super low rate for a limited time.

Imagine how good it would feel to get your thing done. Then go here for more information and to schedule a free, no-obligation clarity call. I look forward to connecting with you!

And if you’d just like companionship for 30 minutes or so to work through the process above, I’m here for that, too. Contact me here to schedule.

Photo by Jude Beck 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)





Four healing shifts and a simple awareness practice.

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Sun shining through fingers

I’m convinced that healing happens as we make four simple shifts. These shifts aren’t rules. They’re more like touchstones. Truths. Signposts along the way of integrity. They’re not linear, but rather a spiral unfurling. They’re my attempt to “systematize Mystery.” 

  1. More soul, less façade. To orient ourselves more and more to the truths of our hearts and souls, and less to others’ expectations. 
  2. More acceptance, less resistance. To accept and celebrate the ever-changing nature of being embodied on this earth more and more often, and resist life’s inevitable changes less often.
  3. More intention, less reaction. To choose our thoughts with intention more often, and become caught in our emotions less often. 
  4. More creation, less victimhood. To actively create our lives more often, and less often behave as passive victims of other people, circumstances, or “fate.” 

Supporting my clients as they make these four shifts is the core of my coaching. These shifts are simple, but that doesn’t mean they’re easy. And we have to know where we’re starting from to get where we want to go.

Moving the dial on these shifts requires awareness of what’s happening in our bodies and our brains.

Powerful, lasting change begins with clearly seeing, acknowledging, and being with our current reality, and loving ourselves no matter what we find when we tune into ourselves.

My clients and I begin every session with a few minutes of tuning in. We stop, we feel our bodies, we breathe. This tuning in is non-negotiable. 

Here’s a simple two-minute awareness practice. You can do it anywhere, and you won’t need any special equipment. Don’t complicate it, or try to excel. Just do it.

1. Stop what you’re doing. Take three breaths, Feel your feet.
2. Scan your body for sensations.
3. Whatever you feel, simply allow it. Let the sensations be what they are.
4. Sit with yourself for two minutes. 

Do this practice as often as you remember. Set a reminder on your phone, if you want to. Journal just a few words about what you find, if you want to. Pay attention to any patterns you see, if you want to.

That’s it. That’s all. This simple awareness practice, just coming home to your body for a couple of minutes, is such a powerful place to start making important shifts. Your body is your life. Your body is a gift. Your body tells you what’s true and real and alive. 

Your body is your connection to your soul. Your soul is your connection to meaning, purpose, and deep joy. Everything starts with your body.

You might find as you do this practice regularly that you become aware of emotions and thoughts. If you do, you can jot them down if you want to.

All change, for conscious humans, begins with awareness.

I go a little deeper into one of the four shifts mentioned above in each newsletter, and suggest a practice, exercise, or journal prompt to explore it further. I value your feedback. 

I’m collecting everything I’ve written about these four touchstones into a short e-book. Your responses and questions will help me make that book clearer and more useful. Contact me here or leave a comment with your thoughts. Thank you! 

PS. I’m transitioning from a blog subscription to a newsletter, in order to serve my readers better. Please visit my website and subscribe to my newsletter to continue to receive posts. Thank you!

Photo credit: Daoudi Aissa on Unsplash

Big. Loud. Messy.

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Wearing a lichen hat
New Year’s Day lettuce lichen hat

Lately I’ve been trying on words to see if they fit. I, and many of my clients, choose a word of the year every December or January. Many of us find that our words actually choose us.

I’ve gone through several word changes before finding the perfect word(s) for 2021. First there was “delight,” which turned out to be too airy-fairy to support the big changes in store for me this year. Then I tried on “Force of Nature,” thinking that the unstoppable, fierce energy of that phrase was perfect. Close, but not quite right. So I tried on “Creator,” thinking that the goal of moving from victimhood to creatorhood in every area of my life was a worthy one indeed. Powerful, but still not it.

These are all fine words. Perhaps one of them is your word.

The trouble with these words, for me, is that my brain thought of them.

Words of the year should arise from your soul, your connection to what simultaneously sustains you and calls you into new life. I hadn’t been listening to my soul very well.

It turns out, my soul wants to expand. My soul is tired of staying in the lines, caged, and tame. So my words this year are, according to my soul, are BIG, LOUD, and MESSY, whether I like them or not.

My friends, I don’t like these words at all. These words scare me. Like most females in our culture, I’ve been heavily socialized to be the opposite of big, loud, and messy. I’ve been taught that I should strive to be small, quiet, and neat. I’ve been trained to be pleasing and useful and “low-maintenance,” whatever that means.

To take up space, to say what I mean and mean what I say, and to make a lot of mistakes—these will be very uncomfortable. I will not be the same woman after I embody these words for a year. No wonder I’m scared.

That’s the point of your word of the year: to set an intention and a direction, to plant the seed of a desire, to unfurl and grow a little. Maybe to scare yourself a little, too, although that’s not a requirement.

For me this year, I’ve decided I’d rather feel the fear of being big, loud, and messy than the despair of staying small, quiet, and neat.

What about you?

How do you want to feel? What do you want to create? What is your soul’s call?

Want to go deeper or explore further? Contact me here to schedule a no-obligation conversation. And here’s more information on how coaching with me works.

My favorite “Word of the Year” resource.

A meditation on messiness from my novel.

A poem to bigness, also from my novel.

The link to download my novel as a free PDF.

Photo credit: Jed Holdorph.

How do you create a new life when you’re still living in the old one?

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House being demolished

How do you create a new life when you’re still living in the old one?

How do you change your life and live from your heart without destroying the things you love about the life you’ve already created?  

How do you stand tall and strong, when the structure you’ve built up till now wants you to stay crooked and small?

Three things:

1. Courage. Heart-based radical trust in your inner wisdom and goodness. Trust your unhappiness, boredom, frustrations, longings, desires.

2. Clarity. Get just a little clearer on the next thing. Maybe the next two things if you’re an overachiever. You don’t have to have the whole vision. Ask yourself: What tugs? What delights? You know what’s next.

3. Conflict. It’s gonna happen. Learn to manage the inevitable conflict that arises when you change how you live your life.

It’s tempting to just move out of the house. And sometimes that’s necessary and it’s what you know you want to do. You could be the woman who seemingly out of the blue divorces her husband and moves to (Santa Fe, Seattle, New York City, a farm in Iowa, fill in the blank) to follow her passion for (ceramics, whales, the theatre, organic fiber, fill in the blank) and no one saw it coming.

We’re so afraid of causing conflict. Making trouble. Rocking the boat. We’re so convinced the life we’ve built is real – immutable, rigid, solid – and if we wiggle and stretch it’ll all come crashing down. Maybe it will.

If the life you’ve built is that fragile – if all that’s holding the structure of your life together is your precious energy and power, then it might need to collapse. If you’re holding the foundation up like the Incredible Hulk while your people upstairs walk around oblivious, then you might want to stop doing that.

Over and over I hear in my clients a deep fear of talking honestly about their frustrations, anger, and yearning with their husbands.

Sometimes they’re fearful because they made a commitment x number of years ago to this man. I hear these women say, “He hasn’t changed, so why do I have the right to be unhappy? I just need to get over myself and wait out this frustration. My kids would be devastated if I left him.”

Sometimes they’re fearful because their husbands are fine with things as they are. I hear these women say, “He’s perfectly happy. I must be wrong. I must be the one who needs to be fixed. I’m being crazy and hysterical.”

Sometimes they’re fearful because they’re afraid of being dismissed by their husbands. I hear these women say, “What if he doesn’t listen? What if he blows me off? What if I’ve opened this can of worms and nothing changes?”

All of these reasons are a variation of the belief that they need permission from someone else to know what they know, feel what they feel, say what they mean, and do what they want. (Words lifted from Martha Beck’s forthcoming book, The Way of Integrity.)

We’re so well-trained by this patriarchal culture in which we live, move, and have our being, that, as women, we need to look outside ourselves for authority. That we’re irrational and we can’t trust our inner wisdom. That the only things that matter are the things we can measure.

My friends, this is bullshit. I don’t know why it is that women seem to need to to grow and change more than men. Maybe it’s because we live in cycles. We embody change. We are rooted in a deeper reality than patriarchal culture.

Why ultimately doesn’t matter.

What matters is that you trust your courageous heart’s voice, you take the next step that delights you even if it’s scary, and you learn to manage the inevitable conflict. Let me know if I can help.

Photo by Haley Hamilton on Unsplash