Finding My Way Back: A Journey of Self-Discovery and Motherhood
It’s been a year since I last wrote here, a year of navigating the changes motherhood brought and finding my way back to myself. In this post, I open up about the challenges of postpartum, the moments that felt heavy, and how I began to rediscover my joy and my voice.
Learning to set and enforce boundaries has been a bigggg part of my journey - and it was actually in the conversation where I learned I was an empath that the therapist asked me if I had them. I said no and she sent me home with a bundle of worksheets to begin implementing. The process seemed simple: decide what you do and do not want to experience and communicate it with those your decision will impact. But when I got out into the real world and began practicing what the worksheets were saying I realized very quickly that setting boundaries wasn’t easy.
Because boundaries require a hard no.
A line in the sand.
A decision on what I will and will not stand.
It’s a black and white process.
But I see the world as colourful.
I see why boundaries are important, but also why they put up walls or leave people out.
And I don’t like that.
I like to be accommodating. I don’t want to be mean. I’m filled with reasons for believing others have the best intentions and I don’t need protecting. But as I’ve learned, a yes to someone else is often a no to ourselves, especially when we are prone to over-giving. And that’s an important thing for those of us aware of having a calling to realize if we are to fulfill our mission.
Without them, we spend our days bending over backwards to meet people and their needs.
But for us empaths, it often looks like give until you break.
Or burn out.
Or get sick.
Because we are upper chakra beings (if you joined me for the free course I lead last week, you know what that means! If you didn’t, I’m running it again mid December. Here’s the link to join waitlist.) with big hearts that enjoy giving back and helping others. Which is a beautiful thing until it isn’t.
Over-giving leads to feeling drained and from a drained place, it’s impossible to create change.
The topic of receiving has been a big one for me this year.
I had to learn to receive payment for my expertise.
I had to learn to receive compliments and praise.
I had to learn to receive support and feedback from those who love me and those who have the knowledge I need to keep my business growing.
And it wasn’t easy because to me, giving was an addiction.
Something I’ve been skirting around for the last year has been the Masculine and Feminine energies. I haven’t checked, but it’s safe to say I mentioned the two archetypes (the ‘Masculine’ and ‘Feminine’) in every post I’ve written in all of 2018 (including this post where I talked about calling in my inner Masculine and this poem where my inner Masculine and inner Feminine finally started getting along) — because this year has been about learning balance.
First within, and now with each other.
2-0-1-8
Reduces to an 11.
Which reduces further to a 2.
2s represent balance, partnership and union in numerology.
It’s live! The new diary. Filled to the brim with the feeling of the world I want to live in. It’s also two months late, and I want to talk a bit about that because it’s late because I felt safe. Having the cover-page up on this site allowed me to breathe in a way I haven’t breathed for almost two years because I knew no one was reading my story. And I wanted to stay in those waters a little while. Because it reminded me of the sacredness of sharing myself with the world. And through that, the worth of my words. Feeling free showed me just how many people I had been supporting. In many ways, I’ve felt like a bird right before he takes off. When he flaps his wings to build up a bit of momentum; when he’s building up the courage to keep going…
Where do I start? It’s been months! Two to be exact. And then a month between posts before that.
As someone with a bio that reads ‘I write for empaths’ I haven’t been doing my job. And for the first time I’ve been okay with that because my spirit knew I needed time inside my own heart.
I needed space to figure things out.
Because this work is hard.
And when you’re making moves in front of an audience it’s really easy to turn what you do into an art. A performance. And as lovely as it is to perform, I never want to be someone who puts on a show. I’m here to be real. I get nauseous if I can’t be myself.
So I stepped back to make sure the life I was building was a life that I want.
It is a conscious being, which is why it has a personal chakra system and grid lines.
And when we talk plant consciousness, we are talking this energy.
A steady, familiar energy similar to a loving mother who wants to support, care for and protect YOU.
As maternal energy, Earth jumps at the opportunity to care for her beings and one way it does this is through gifts like rocks and plants and other natural offerings, which all share in her steady energy and maintain a consciousness of their own.
The biggest trap people get into when wanting to manifest an intention is to believe there is a set of 'steps' they need to be following.
Visualizing this many minutes.
Saying this many affirmations.
Etc.
Because there isn’t.
In fact, following a pre-set set of rules is the fastest way to limit your success, because the rigidity of a step-by-step blocks your inner voice; your intuition.
Though visualization and affirmation can be great tools to move energy in your favour, once you know what you want, you only need one other thing (well, two) to be successful, and that’s a deep connection to your intuition and the willingness to listen to what it is telling you you need to do.
