The more you know the more you realize how much you don’t know!

This is how I felt (and how I often still feel) going through my own healing journey.

I experienced a deep awareness, combined with crippling overwhelm in the years right after my children were born. While coming to terms with being a mother, not knowing what that meant and fighting against many elements of the mothering I had received; I had an idea of what I wanted and why being my own kind of mother was important to me…but I had no idea how to get there while living the life I had.
This led to my first & second battles with burnout!

Next came the awareness of my sense of unworthiness and never feeling like I belonged, stimulated by my newly claimed mother identity and followed by a massive career change that imploded my current sense of self, leaving me vulnerable and afraid.
Leading to my third & fourth battles with burnout…that although were laced with more knowledge about what I was going through, were equally devastating.

And now into my second year of sobriety…

With all the joy & self-love, confusion & “wanting to be like everyone else”, I have found myself on the pathway to burnout multiple times but as of this moment, have yet to battle that demon again.

And what I is clear to me is that no matter how great and exciting a healing goal may be…when you don’t have the tools, resources, community and means to re-calibrate when you waiver off course…overwhelm and burnout is the end result!

When she spoke I felt called to act & scared to move

At the last Society meeting my friend, indigenous storyteller Elaine Wabie, spoke about her experiences as a “young Indian growing up off reserve” and the impact generations of oppression had on her and the non-indigenous folk in her life. She spoke about the power of education and self-reflection and how support and love can take many forms.

I feel that my years of self-reflection primed me in a way for this moment, when I would come nose to nose with the discomfort that bubbles up when we are aware of our ignorance. For many people that discomfort is unbearable, the awareness of how much we don’t know and understand, triggers a need to reassert control by pushing that awareness away.

The need driving that behaviour is safety

Our need to be and feel safe will drive us to do many things. It determines what we say yes to, what we say no to. What we will stand up for and who we will get behind. We feel most safe when we are aligned with people, organizations and systems that believe what we believe (at a core and unconscious level).

And those of us willing to question our beliefs, where they originated from and whether or not they are still serving us, will face the discomfort that comes with vulnerability, learning & growth.

What makes the discomfort bearable

1 – The practice of self-love & self-acceptance … just as you are with your current knowledge & beliefs, dreams & desires, flaws & failures.

2 – A willingness to build a trusting relationship with yourself. Self-trust is what makes it possible for you to trust others. Trust is the opposite to control. Our need to control our environments, the people around us and everything in between stems from lack of trust in our ability to have our own backs!

3 – Choosing to surround yourself with people who, like you, are willing to be vulnerable and learn from their experiences. People who value growth, inclusion, love and compassion. People who see your inherent awesomeness no matter what you’ve experienced in the past. This can be challenging as we don’t often feel like we’re “choosing” the people we are with the most…the key here is to choose how much you engage with people (aka choosing to build and hold boundaries).

We will always gravitate and feel more comfortable with people who see the world the way we do, who believe what we believe and treat us the way be believe we are meant to be treated.

When our awareness of what is possible and what may be true deepens or when we are opened up to another person’s experience and choose to suspend our model of the world in order to really hear and feel their story … something magical (and a little f’n scary) happens.

We are gifted with the opportunity to lean in, love unconditionally and leap into a new awesome way of being.

It takes courage to be curious about who you are, what you think, why you do what you do. And it takes a commitment to that courage to re-write the beliefs that are responsible for what you think, feel & do.

And if you have never had that courage modelled for you or if the collective fear and blindness that comes from dis-trust of self and others makes it feel impossible for to leave what is safe…let this letter be a reminder of the love and support that is out in the world just waiting for you.

Whether you join our (not so) Secret Society and practice flourishing through the hot messes of life alongside others doing the same, or invite me to help you navigate the vulnerable unknown that exists between where you are and where you’d like to be…know that you are loved, honoured and valued for the fucking awesome person you are!