As a new year rolls around, it has all of us planning for change. Instead of creating “New Year’s resolutions” I’m shaking up the status quo and directing my attention to what I desire! Very often we create goals because we believe when we achieve them we will feel happy, fulfilled, or (insert another feeling here). At the start of a new year, we have so much hope more than any other time of the year. “Maybe this will be the year I lose 10 pounds.” “This will be the year I travel abroad.”
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but you are doing it all wrong! Here is a better way to bring in the new year to create change in your life.
Another Year, Another You
Figure out how you want to feel A great resource I use to do this is Danielle LaPorte’s Desire Map. It is a book/workbook that gives prompts to assist you in deciding how you want to feel in all areas of your life. She provides many examples of feelings. It will have you excited about all the possibilities for them in your life.
Make the decision to have these feelings be your ultimate aim They are an intention you set for your state of mind and your state of emotions. An outside goal, whether completed or failed, should not affect your desired state.
Create goals that will assist you in staying in these feelings Remember, feelings have energy. By aligning our thoughts with what we truly want to feel, we use our mind to solve issues and create circumstances that agree with our desires.
Reevaluate when necessary You change, life changes – don’t be afraid to speak up for what you want. You are the ultimate decider for how you want your life to feel, look, and be.
My 5 core desired feelings:
Poise
Communion
Space
Vibrant
Creative
I got these from going through Danielle LaPorte’s Desire Map Workbook. Your desires are all your own. You hold the definition of the words in you. For me, the words above conjure up specific feelings I wish to embody and have in my life. Let your words speak to you; find ones that spark and light you up!
We can’t forget the stories we tell ourselves! Yup, I’m talking about belief systems. These can assist us in our desires, or they can entirely stop them from ever manifesting in our lives. They are like strong, deep roots buried deep within our psyche. Just when you think you have almost uprooted one, you find little tendons, strong as hell, holding on. I believe we can never fully eradicate some of them. History, trauma, culture, and an array of other influences keep them rooted.
What we can do though is water ones that serve our desires, grounding us in how we truly want to feel.
Come up with 5 beliefs you want to have for the new year, preferably ones that assist you in staying in your desired feelings. I suggest spitting them out without much filtering. Allow yourself to know what is good for you!
My 5 beliefs I will keep close:
Life is on my side; it wants me to flourish.
My inner world is perfect just how it is.
When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.
Laughter is the best medicine.
I have the power to nourish what I want in my life.
Cheers to staying true to what you desire! Cheers to another year! Cheers to being here to experience it!
If you are like me, you want to be in the driver’s seat of your life. You know, deciding which direction the vehicle will head, with both hands on the steering wheel. Actually, one hand on the steering wheel and one out the window, cuz come on, we don’t want to take life too seriously (this is a metaphor, please don’t think I’m saying that we should not drive safe). But honestly, we want to feel like we are capable and free to choose our path. I want you to know you have the power within you, to restore that sense of control in your life!
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The Wrong Kind of Control
Often times, we sabotage our lives, with control. Not the good kind of control either. The control I believe poisons our world is the one where we attempt to keep things the same in order to know our future will be the same or try to prevent harm from happening. This creates a sense of security.
It feels like we have a warm blanket wrapped around us and our mother is telling us everything will be okay. But this control (keeping things the same) is not the one you want to attain.
It is an illusion to believe we can control the future. You ultimately are resisting and manipulating your present life, with an array of beliefs, emotions, and actions. Of course, most of the time, we are doing this unconsciously. Why would we sabotage change that could be for the better?
Shift How You Perceive Control
Imagine you are swimming down a river. There is a current – going one way. You can try to swim back up it. You may even be able to, but it will only exhaust you because the river is always moving forward.
Accepting this forward motion, you realize you can do certain things to move from one area of the river to the other while moving forward. Ahhh this is what I can control, runs through your head.
Your sense of relief and peace is shattered though with a voice you know oh too well – worry. Where will this river take me, you wonder? Will it lead to a deadly waterfall? Will it pour me into a raging sea? It consumes you, and you begin to panic. Your breath now becomes shallow, and you fear you may drown, right here right now.
A voice emerges and reminds you, you can’t predict what will come down the river, you must trust in yourself that you will be able to handle it when it comes.
Look at what worrying is doing to you; you may kill yourself from it. You take a deep breath and come back to where you are at now. The birds are chirping in the overhanging tree above you. You begin to laugh because you don’t have it that bad. There is peace in the river’s motion.
You start to sing, and a few seconds later you have a consecrating aha moment. By deciding to accept where I am right now and deciding to make the most of it, I am ultimately choosing my future one moment at a time.
We cannot control life, or even our life for that matter. We are not God or magicians. What we can do is align ourselves and our life with specific energy and desired outcomes.
What we can control is ourselves. The feelings we hold, the stories we tell ourselves, and the actions we take every day are what we are in charge of.
Let Go of Security and the Need to Feel Safe
Like I said above security is an illusion. When we let go of trying to feel safe all the time, we can replace it with deeply knowing and feeling we can take life as it comes.
Learn Who You Are
It is a journey of transformation – claiming your inherent power as a conscious, capable human being. It takes looking at your weaknesses and your strengths, your shadows and your light.
When you begin to know yourself, with all your polarities, through experience, you will become resilient and grounded. No one or nothing can throw you off your axel. Sure people and events can jerk you a bit, but you’re grounded. This is power.
5 Positive Beliefs That Will Keep You in the Driver’s Seat
Choose Love over Fear Whenever you notice a fearful story running in your mind, inciting strong emotions, remind yourself you don’t have to believe your mind. Fear is a surviving mechanism our brain uses, but most of the time we are not in any real danger. So when you are not in physical danger, decide to invite love into the story.
You can control how you show up in each moment How you show up in any given circumstance can affect the situation drastically. Have you ever heard E + R = O (Event + Response = Outcome)? I remember this from reading The Success Principles by Jack Canfield years ago, and it stuck! This reminds us that our presence is everything and how we show up can affect the outcome!
There is only one you There is only one you in this whole world, with all your desires, feelings, and skills. Your path will look and feel different than everyone else’s. Knowing this, you can tune into yourself for guidance because there is not another you. Who would know what this one life should do more than you?
What other’s think of you is none of your business Every person sees other people through their own lens. These different lenses can be biased, tainted, backed by beliefs that are totally different than yours. When you are staying true to your core beliefs and following your heart, and know other’s will see things differently, if they criticize or even appreciate you it will not throw you off balance.
The Universe Has Your Back “The most important decision we make is whether we believe we live in a friendly or hostile universe” -Albert Einstein. When we believe the universe is a friendly place, we then can let a lot of our fears go. Whatever you believe to be a higher power, whether it be God, the source, multiple gods/energies, turn to it for guidance. If it is a friendly place, then it can assist you in your life.
We long to feel like we belong somewhere in the world. We search for it in people, in another city, and even in groups of people united by some ideology, but the sense of belonging will never stand if we do not create it within ourselves. Even more, if we do not understand how the Earth is alive with all its living beings communing and co-existing together, we cannot feel part of it.
In my life, I’ve tended to find something that made me different from the people around me and used that to justify the belief that I did not belong. Which by me doing this it would catapult me into the search for another place, another friend, another identity. But I had it all wrong, it wasn’t my outside circumstances or environment that needed to change per se, it was my logic, or how I was perceiving “belonging” that needed to shift.
Many ideas and beliefs hinder us from connecting and belonging. Shifting these beliefs are key toward a path of belonging and building a feeling of community. What I think is most important though, is the sense of power that grows back into your life. You have the ability to discern and evaluate what ideas and beliefs rule over you.
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Subjects vs. Objects
Our society sees the world as a bunch of objects for humans to collect. Even knowledge, ideas, and adventures are observed as flat accomplishments, things to put under our belt. People tend to hoard these things and want more than other humans! Even money is known as a thing. We rarely think about “money” as currency, as energy, used to create action between two people exchanging items, gifts, food, services, etc.
Firstly, when we value all humans, living creatures other than humans, even elements of the Earth, we are acknowledging their presence, their gift to the world. Seeing them as a subject instead of an object gives them space, freedom to be, able to interact as they choose fit with other subjects. Women don’t like to be “objectified” by men. It belittles us, strips us from our depth of character, turns us into a sexual object. Why do we, humans, do that to so many things!? When we allow the world to be, we ultimately are saying it is okay for us to be, just as we are.
“We must say of the universe that it is a communion of subjects not a collection of objects.” Thomas Berry
The Other
We fear what we do not know. Other cultures and ways of living are foreign to our ways of life. Each of us has been raised into a web of beliefs and rules that we use to filter what is “acceptable” through. We then project all those onto other people, seeing them through those filters. (Check out a previous post on the ways society suppresses.)
What if we believe that everyone has something to teach us? What if we allow ourselves to possibly be wrong? I mean we are domesticated into our culture and beliefs, they could be wrong… What if we find interest in what another has to say and attempt to listen and understand them? I’m not just talking about words and the English language. There are many other ways of communicating and understanding between subjects. And I’m not just talking about between humans…
What if we stop and ask what the animals are trying to say? What if when we go on a hike, we ask mother nature, “what are you saying to me?” To feel like we belong, we want to feel heard, be listened to. So when you begin to do it with others, you are teaching them how to reciprocate it.
“To be native to a place we must learn to speak its language.” Robin Wall Kimmerer
There’s no Room for Me
Do you ever feel like there are so many people doing awesome things that there might not be room for you? I have often felt this way. Or have you felt like you shouldn’t pursue what your passionate about because someone has to do the “hard” stuff (The things no one else wants to do)?
Searching for, cultivating and understanding your gifts may at first seem selfish. When we broaden our sight though, we begin to understand that the world and society are based on give & take systems. To exist in it is to contribute to it. I’m not just talking about what we can give to our economy, by ways of “work.” It is poisonous to narrow life to just that. I am talking about the array of gifts we can give out into the world: i.e., kindness, helping others see the bigger picture, having a knack for detail, being great at getting people to come together, or simply able to hold presence to remind people to slow down. We can apply these “gifts” anywhere in life, in different industries, in different settings.
Nature and ecology can teach us that each organism, each part has its purpose. When lived out in collaboration with others everything can flourish. So self-inquiry is essential in a communion world where people give their best selves. By you expressing your unique gifts you compliment and allow others to express theirs. This creates a web of encouragement and support, giving us a sense of belonging.
Fitting In
Since we were young, we have been domesticated, given rewards for following the norm and following the standards of our society and communities. We have also been punished in small, insidious ways, leaving us fearful that we will lose connection, one of our basic human needs. Thus, our constant act of trying to fit in. The downfall of this is many people think their real, authentic self is not what it will take to “fit in” so they try their hardest to be “normal” or whatever that group/community says is acceptable.
How sad is this! After years of playing these games (we don’t even realize we are doing it) we wonder why we feel so lost. We wonder why we feel distant from the people in our lives. We have forgotten ourselves, our true selves. This is when we often break down, have a mid-life unraveling, or demand significant change to fix our feelings of not belonging.
In the moments when you realize you are not happy, not seen, not connected are the moments you can really harness to create change. Often though, we think we have to have an external change. Yes, this could be necessary, but more than that we need an internal change.
So many of us feel this way! What if you decide to not change your friends, your work environment, your community but instead change how you show up?
What if you decide that self-acceptance is more important than fitting in?
Feeling Connected
Lastly, deep down we all want to feel seen, feel valued, feel worthy, be accepted, and have a voice for who we truly are. So how do we show up as our authentic selves and still make meaningful connections?
In Brene Brown’s book, I Thought It Was Just Me (But It Isn’t), she gives four elements of shame resilience to help people like you and I move through shame. This is what is needed to go up against all the “shoulds” of society. In her book, she explains that fear, blame, and disconnection is a byproduct of shame, and building resilience will move us toward a life of empathy with courage, compassion, and connection as byproducts.
It takes looking at our own fears and the shame we carry. Brene Brown says, “Shame is the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing we are flawed and therefore unworthy of acceptance and belonging.” It is when we believe that something about ourselves is not normal. We feel powerless to change our lives. After looking at our shame, and realizing everyone has it because we all have expectations put on us, we can then reach out to others and speak it. This creates an opportunity for connection, to have someone else say #metoo. This creates space for empathy, where you and I both find common ground in the difficulties of being a human in this world.
So then we must create different expectations for ourselves. But only you can do that! And just as you would show support and empathy for the difficult task of staying true to one’s self-chosen beliefs about what and who they should be to others, you can do the same for yourself.
Courage Foward
Show yourself compassion as you continue to understand yourself and speak your truths (Gala Darling always inspires me, her journey toward belonging). Remember that by listening to others and trying to understand them you are opening space for reciprocity.
I hope by reading these shifts in thinking you can begin to feel powerful again because you have the power of discernment (Check out a previous post on ways of knowing, that could assist you in power of discernment).
You can decide to live your life according to holistic, inclusive, courageous beliefs. You are already worthy of love, of acceptance, of joy.
Step up and step out there. Tell me how this article makes you feel in the comments below. Let’s connect!
This is part seven of the Women Who Dare to Be Wild series, the last post in this one! I cherish this series because the wild woman archetype opened up my life. By letting her free within myself, accepting her wisdom and cycles, I feel grounded in my encounters. I hope you can hear the call to rise within your heart and soul, to take the leap into open waters and come back home to your deepest drives. The journey with the wild woman is one that will restore balance in your life.
To live your best life, you must journey within yourself. Ask the tough questions, and listen to what your inner voice is telling you. An easy way to do this (that anyone can do) is through journaling. This assists you in listening to your inner voice, your wise voice. As you do this, you will begin to differentiate what you want from what society believes you should want. You will start to hear your own desires from your heart and soul. With the attributes of the wild here, you can observe your life through a different lens and begin to integrate holistic beliefs into your everyday life.
Ground Yourself
As you embark on this journey remember your truths, remember what grounds you in your world. When I say your truths, I am talking about faith. What do you believe in your bones? What gets you through your darkest days? What did your mother, your father, your grandmother, your childhood hero say to you when you were feeling down?
Truths I keep dear when I’m going through change:
❤ I am capable of figuring out anything as it comes up
❤ There is a higher power which is on my side
❤ We each have our own journeys to walk, and each one is different
❤ I am unique in the most wonderful of ways
❤ I am not less than or better than anyone else
❤ This too shall pass
❤ There is beauty in this, find it
❤ I am a resilient badass warrior
❤ I have people in my life who I can call, see, etc. (even if I don’t stay in contact with them)
Life can get bumpy when we decide to make changes, especially ones where we are changing ourselves. But these are the best kinds of rides. These rides are when you truly feel alive, when you begin to feel authentic. So recall those truths, keep them close to your heart, and hold on for this is life and it’s a wild ride.
Let Go & Dive In
Don’t get me wrong, it’s not rainbows and butterflies all the time. You will feel things we, often times, try to avoid feeling. You will rub right up against voices (little gremlins) that whisper awful things to you.
Have you ever heard of the idea that as adults we don’t need other people telling us how to act or how to be anymore because we have internalized all the domestication since we were young? This is where the voices come from!
We must go up against who we use to be (this includes the influencers we have had in our lives) to become the next version of ourselves. This can happen in slight adjustments, or it can feel like we have shattered into many pieces causing us to fully break, requiring us to rebuild our sense of self into a completely different build.
Let go of needing to be in control and feeling secure. These are overrated. A state of vulnerability is where we grow. Vulnerability has such a bad rep. If you haven’t listened to Brene Brown’s TED talk on the subject, go do so now. In this state we are following our hearts, we are creating a new world, a new us.
“We must practice magic – the art of changing consciousness at will.” -Starhawk
Journey On
It can be a fun, adventurous endeavor as you become more wild at heart and relish in the feminine attributes of yourself and the life around you. We all long for a different way of being where there is balance in ourselves. This can be possible. Your racing mind can settle, and you can begin to play with life. You can dance to your feelings. You can flow with the currents. You can remember you are connected with everyone and everything around you. Open yourself to life, and it will show you its magic.
The journey with the Wild Woman though, it not your only one. We each embark on many journeys, many cycles that bring us closer to our best self.
Interested in learning more about a journey’s cycle, check out this short video on Joseph Campbell’s hero’s journey, this article all about the heroine’s journey, this interesting article on a change curve, and another motivational post on why we need journeys!
Books that inspired me to write this series:
Women Who Run With the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph.D
The Fire and the Rose by Bud Harris, Ph.D
Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde
Wild Creative by Tami Lynn Kent
If Women Rose Rooted by Sharon Blackie
The Soul’s Code by James Hillman
Decolonizing Methodologies by Linda Tuhiwai Smith
Truth or Dare by Starhawk
Dreaming The Dark by Starhawk
Rise Sister Rise by Rebecca Campbell
Check out the previous posts in this series here! No need to worry about reading them in order, they can flow read backwards and mixed up.
Part Six of the Women Who Dare to Be Wild series. This post is about why you dare to be your most wild, authentic self. We will look at what motivates your actions and where motivation originates. By the end, you will be asking yourself, “What is this intense desire to be and do in the world? And how can I follow desire to enrich my life?”
As we strip away what is not sincere about your motives, ravage through the roadblocks society uses to control you, and remember truths about the world we inhabit, you will uncover deeper, more authentic desires.
First, I want you to ask yourself why your life is how it is right now? Look into the different areas of your life: your job, your relationships, where you live, what you do consistently, the communities which you reside, and inquire within for the reasons you are where you are. Look at your whys! I’m not asking for you to find definitive answers, just that you notice patterns, intentions, motives for what you choose to be in your life.
When we ask our whys, we are looking at what is motivating us. Motivation can be complex, but I like to think of it as external and internal drives.
External Drives – How You Are Controlled
External drives come from or are a response to things outside of ourselves, and they have been motivating us since we popped out of our mother’s vagina. These can be separated into reward and punishment, or spoken commonly as the carrot and the stick domestication.
I spoke a little about this in the third post, What Drove The Wild In You Down. I’ll attempt to explain briefly how we are motivated by these external sources. Society has many systems of authority with rules and regulations that enforce the particular order. If we obey we are rewarded, if not we are punished. Believing in these structural concepts, we give our power away to their ideas of what is valuable, what is worthy, and what is important.
Starhawk says, “Authority relieves us of the responsibility of independent action. Instead, we react in set and patterned ways.” It’s no wonder, so many of us feel powerless in our lives – powerless to change, to go for our dreams, to reclaim a better sense of self. Starhawk gives four responses to systems of punishment: compliance, rebellion, withdrawal, and manipulation. All of these respond to the rules, which confirm them to be true. We want to resist reacting to the system in ways that perpetuate them. At times though, these responses are necessary in a given moment or for a prolonged period of our lives. This is not bad; often to sustain ourselves and preserve our energy these responses are what keeps us alive.
“The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” Audre Lorde
Resistance
So how do we resist society’s systems that control our lives? How do we consciously make choices that bring us closer to our best authentic lives?
We decide to open ourselves up and see another reality, create another reality. I believe we all have to build the communication sensors with our heart’s and soul’s desires, so we stay in alignment with our growth while living in a social world. We can never separate ourselves from societies influences. Who would really want to?
“Creation is the ultimate resistance.” Starhawk
The key is to understand how you fit into society, how the rules define/control your life, and check within your heart and soul to see where your place is within it or around it. This is where change has always occurred. Someone, somewhere, decided to challenge and resist a system they felt did not ring true in them: ranging from changing laws or starting a revolution, to raising a child different than the norm or sustaining oneself on something everyone else said couldn’t be done.
“The opposite of negative passive thinking is creative curious doing.”
So creating is the secret to living an authentic life. But not just any ‘ol creating, creation that stems from our deepest self, our truest desires. A way of living that leads us in the directions we choose to embark on, down paths that ring true to our own soul’s journey.
Internal Motivators & Drives — Allowing Desire A Seat At The Table
“The heart has its reasons which reason knows not of.” Pascal
I believe internal motivators stem from our desires. Desire to feel alive, desire to experience something deeply, desire to feel connected to someone or something outside of oneself, desire to feel good, desire to see the world beautifully, desire to change what you do not like about something, desire to assist the underdog, desire to grow something -a garden, a child, a business.
Joseph Campbell’s idea of what we’re seeking seems to be true: “an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances within our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.” (p. 5, The Power of Myth)
I believe there is a difference between “our life” and the life we are living. The first one – “our life,” is the story of our life. This can be told differently to different people, and we can even have many stories we believe to be true about our life. This is normal, and essential in our world. We tell stories to relate, to entertain, to give us meaning. The second is the life we are living with all our tribulations, failures, dreams, feelings, and fantasies. Our life is complex; there is no possible way to explain it all in stories, let alone a single account. We are experiencing life, now, here in this moment. As soon as we speak of it, it disperses. Any attempt to describe our life is not going to be entirely correct.
Once we begin uncovering and figuring out who we are, restoring our power in our choices and our perceptions, we then can reclaim our own stories. We are the narrator, instead of the many voices in our society. The stories we tell become more authentic rather than creating a fictitious character we can’t/ don’t want to live up to. The balance between how we interpret our lives and the events that occur in them is a dance we are continually jiving to. Our lives begin to feel meaningful when this dance is authentic: our experiences of life (and the stories we tell about them) match our desires for our life. Like Joseph Campbell said above, this is when we truly begin to feel alive!
Eroticism
To better grasp your own deep desires, I would like to mention Audre Lorde’s argument, or should I say realization, that since the erotic has been devalued and oppressed, recovering it can be a source of power. I’m not talking about merely physical eroticism: sensation and pleasure, which society has shortly defined. The erotic I mention stems from the Greek word eros, which is love in all its expressions. It is the chaotic drive deep within to feel and enjoy life. Once we reclaim the more extensive definition, we can let go of the stank that comes with the dirty connotation of desire.
So how can desire and the erotic be a source of power? If power is the ability to influence or change something, then these can most definitely change your life. Christianity and religion in general have, for centuries, said what is bad and what is good, what is sinful and what is appropriate. They may be well intended, but over time these rules have controlled us: shaming us, and shrinking our lives.
When the erotic is reclaimed, we filter what stays in our lives by how we feel, not by external directives. If all of us are after a life brimming with joyful experiences, then we must learn to process our feelings within and choose experiences based on that, instead of what everyone else says will give us joy.
Dare to Follow Desire
It takes practice in learning to listen to what is calling you. I say practice because you will need the courage to go up against forces in our society: standards, obligations, and pressure from others. You will have to keep showing up, day in and day out for what makes you feel alive and what gives your life meaning. It will hurt, you will feel beaten down, you will feel lost in uncharted waters but keep going. Life is meant to be an adventure, not a simple plan you follow to “succeed” and be happy.
This is why I say “DARE” because we must utilize courage to show up for our inner desires, our soul’s inclinations, and life’s tests. Pulled and pushed by these we expand our consciousness and develop meaning in our lives. In the next post, I’ll talk about this process.
“When we deny desire, we are denying life.”
Could desire be a call from our soul? Could it be whispering to us a direction to walk where we may just find a piece to our inter-webbing puzzle of meaning? I say, why not? Why can’t this be true? I am a firm believer that however big, creative, and wonderful our lives are is directly correlated with the beliefs we have about life. Not only this but with the stories and journeys we believe are available to us.
If we find the stories, the myths, the belief structures that promote and display people discovering and listening to their inner desires, this can assist us in realizing and bringing into fruition joyous lives. They may be forgotten, hidden and buried beneath structures of control and power, but those stories are recoverable. In combination with connecting to our internal compass, our deep feelings, our drives we can live lives that genuinely feel ours.
“Your Life Opens Up, When You Do.” Patrick Simondac
There is hope that we may create a world, where we all may live our best lives. It’s not always easy, but it is fun because it living.
