A healing story - what happens when you meet the fear of wintering?
A healing story - of courage in the pause and becoming unfrozen...
Last week as I ventured out on my morning walk (part of my morning predictability and stability practice – see end of this note for one), I was reflecting on how healing stories can be potent and look many different ways.
I shared with you a client story about her exploding back into her life with purpose, clarity, and confidence, and renewed identity in her leadership and life (if you missed it, read it HERE).
A different story.
This week’s story is about another beloved client whose healing journey in this moment looks very different, though equally powerful, essential and impactful.
This moment in her healing story looks like her pressing pause, turning inward, and “wintering” – so she can slow it all down and do the recalibrating needed before she turns outward again.
This amazing woman, mother and entrepreneur just finished launching her first book, has had a successful podcast for her community going for 4 years now, and is preparing to take her entrepreneurial mission far and wide.
Her business emerges as powerful conscious entrepreneurship built from her experience of mothering and mending through a child in crisis that led to a family in crisis, and then extraordinary family healing and connection.
She emerged from this bigger story into a world of activism and using her (and all of their) voices for good – and in so doing, she’s changing other families’ trajectories through her work.
What does the journey look like?
She arrived, ready to do some deeper healing, knowing that in order to advance her mission, she needed to clear the way to step into her role as changemaker.
She needed to heal old generational stories and self-sabotaging patterns that were keeping her stuck. These stories were expressing as overworking, overgiving, “Yessing” in places she no longer wanted to “yes”, and in a state of hypervigilance that wasn’t serving her any longer.
And all of these patterns were keeping her from focusing clearly on her next steps and the ways she wanted to use her voice to advance her work.
She knew she needed to do this deeper healing for her health and well being, and in doing so, expand her nervous system capacity to bring her powerful vision to life and get it out in the world.
And right after stepping into this program, some big things happened. She lost a beloved family member, and had another family member enter hospice. (She also had to get final edits on her book to the publisher.)
Now, this might look like serious inconvenience and poor timing.
But her courage and willingness to dive in allowed her to see these as an opening to deeper healing.
Through our work, she was able to touch into and work with years of unexpressed grief from her own cancer diagnosis and recovery that she’d pushed through (to keep taking care of everyone else) years ago.
She was moved to understand how much the freeze component of her nervous system had been her way of functioning – and we worked with that frozen energy and the grief from her child’s crisis. This was essential because, while all are well now, during that crisis her work was holding six people together to create a healing story - while also living the story herself.
Through working with grief together in this moment and learning how the body keeps the score of these lived experiences, she was able to honor and acknowledge her her own crises and losses, something she’d not paused to take time to fully feel previously.
When we worked on the nervous system parts of our private Retreat day, she said to me,
“This freeze stuff makes so much sense. It’s been my go-to since I was a small child. And it’s just what I do. And for so long, especially in the past 5-7 years, I’ve been so driven – like I need to always be working, or hypervigilant to what’s going on with kids at all hours. I don’t have want to have this manifesting physically. I want to do this (healing) work now while it’s a whisper instead of a screaming alarm bell.”
Her healing journey has been clearing the way for what’s next by tending to what’s been.
She has stopped wanting to DO so much (totally new for her).
She SLOWED down to see, notice, feel.
She set boundaries around her time, work, priorities.
She said “no” to some things that she’d been feeling obligated to continue and chose “yes” for the priorities that needed her attention.
And she’s getting comfortable with trusting that this is a season, and that when this season completes, she’ll be able to move to spring. (That trust in itself is a powerful piece of healing.)
What worked?
- She was ready.
- She made a decision to prioritize her healing and self-care with support and accountability structures.
- She came with courage, and kept gathering up the courage – because let's face it, in this world, as a high functioning leader, slowing down can be all kinds of scary.
- She’s released the beliefs she previously held and knows now that slowing down and needing to pause doesn't mean failure, and this isn’t a punishment, but a natural part of the rhythm she needs to honor.
- She borrowed permission (initially from me) and then learned to give herself permission to take this space for herself and dive in.
- When she's felt discouraged about slowing down (and her mind is telling her to pick up the pace), she's reminded herself of the larger vision, and that this isn’t forever.
What’s the impact?
- She’s understanding how important her healing is and making it a priority.
- She has rhythms in her days that are supporting her nervous system and creating stability and safety to do some of the healing and releasing.
- She was able to have conversations with her parents and feel the calm of natural regulation within her nervous system, thus not being triggered by and reacting to their challenging behavior. (Note: she wasn't having to force a calm response - because she'd cleared the way to have it happen naturally.)
- She learned that she likes some aspects of slowing down!
- She’s got more space in her schedule since she’s said “no” to things that didn’t align.
- She’s wasting less energy on “doing” and focusing on “being” because she knows there will be time for doing in another moment.
How about you?
I invite you to ask, where do you see yourself reflected in her story?
Can you relate to being the one who tends to all of the things around you – the crises, the other humans, the 4-leggeds, your organization or activism – and not tending to your own body, mind, heart, and spirit?
And then it catches up with you years later, begging for your attention in the form of physical illness or chronic stress or anxiety?
Are you someone (or know someone) who needs a permission slip to slow down, take a day, NOT race through the to do list and take care of everyone else before you?
(And is there someone you know who needs to hear this story?)
This IS the work - the slowing down. The pause.
And it takes tremendous courage to let go and feel the fear of what might happen when you slow down.
If you said yes to any of the above, what’s one small action you can take toward your own healing today?
What’s one small change toward slowing down that you could do? (It might simply be giving yourself permission… or it could be taking 5 minutes to breathe.)
Or what's one commitment you could release?
One small thing. Or 5 minutes a day.
As you show up for yourself, and do the healing actions (big healing and little healing), it supports you, your well-being, your work in the world, and the collective.
When we...
commit to doing our own healing,
step into releasing patterns that keep us frozen and unable to feel,
slow down and listen to the body,
find stable in our nervous systems,
let go of generational stories that create patterns that hurt our health and well-being (while still honoring our ancestors)...
we can do beautiful things through our changemaking, work, leadership, parenting, teaching, community tending, activism, and peacemaking,
Know that your healing story helps us to create more healing stories out there.
The world needs you well.
With love and many blessings,
Kelly
p.s. To support you in your healing story, here are some ways…
1) Mapping Your Healing Path Sessions.
If you’re recognizing the need to tend to your healing story, or feeling on the cusp of big changes, and need some partnership and momentum for your own healing path, I invite you to gift yourself (or someone you love) a Mapping Your Healing Path session (75 min). I’ll help you identify what needs attention, get clear on your vision and figure out your “map” and next steps for your healing path. If you’ve been wondering what it’s like to have support in your healing and aren’t quite ready to dive into a full program, let's give you some momentum, right now.
Join my friend Mia’s Make December Matter event – you'll get daily 5 min nuggets of actions you can take to make this season, and your life, better. All recordings are made available so you can listen at any time. I’m loving tasting the different possibilities for change with the variety of teachers there. It lasts all month – and is virtual and free!
3) Honoring 2023, Releasing 2024.
Come look at YOUR healing story of last year and the next year.
More to come on this next week - for now, put January 7 on your calendar for our annual virtual retreat - with a new and special twist this year. We'll look back on 2023, honor what you did, became and healed, celebrate and release, and then vision your healing story for 2024, to move forward with clarity, intention, and focused action toward the kind of healing story and year you want (way better than resolutions...). GO HERE for more information and to register.
4) Practice finding Stability and Predictability.
Download (or listen again to) my Stability and Predictability practice, right HERE.
Thank you for being here, in the world at this time, doing what you’re here to do, and shining your light in ways that help to illuminate the darkness. The world needs you well.