“We were taught to believe that who we are in our natural state is bad and dangerous. They convinced us to be afraid of ourselves. So we do not honor our own bodies, curiosity, hunger, judgment, experience, or ambition. Instead, we lock away our true selves… The epitome of womanhood is to lose one’s self completely. That is the end goal of every patriarchal culture. Because a very effective way to control women is to convince women to control themselves.”
Glennon Doyle, Untamed
An uncomfortable & startling truth
I am going to make you uncomfortable, probably deeply so. How do I know? Because this makes me uncomfortable, even now, today, when I have dedicated myself (sometimes fearlessly and full of vim, more often tentatively and terrified) to this topic. And each day – usually when I’m trying my best to hide – I find more fuel for the fire, and more great voices of support and assent to spur me on.
It’s more painfully clear to me every day that we are focussing on the wrong solutions. That our paths have been pre-programmed and even when we feel we are healing and freeing ourselves from all our conditioning, the best we are accomplishing is actually just a little relief. We are losing some of the symptoms of repression, but only temporarily, and it is an ongoing firefight.
The raging fire within is being veiled – not suffocated entirely, but given just enough oxygen to keep smouldering and smoking.
Your soul contract is screaming at you
In shamanism, all symptoms are communication. It doesn’t matter what you are suffering from, it is a signal from your body-spirit that you’re poisoning, repressing, suppressing, or simply ignoring and sedating your energy field – whether that is physically, emotionally, mentally or spiritually.
“Your soul and the universe are in contract with each other. Neither will let you give up. You will be constantly challenged in every area of your life until you start dancing along.”
But addressing the symptoms is not enough, and going to your yoga classes, doing your tapping/EFT, mindfulness practice, eating greens, drinking water, and even finding gratitude and joy each day is not enough.
(And now I know you’re hacked off, because isn’t that already overwhelming trying to achieve all-those-things?).
Don’t keep calm and carry on
Please, just know this: calming our nervous system may be the first step, but you can make coming back to your core-wild-and-untamed Self a dance. Linearity does not apply here. You are not required to fully complete your extensive healing before allowing your whole self to shine!
If you take away one thing from this post, let it be that.
“Whilst we learn to go within, we must also learn simultaneously let our wildest, fieriest selves out – in full integrity and from a place of compassionate wholeness.”
Your soul and the universe are in contract with each other. Neither will let you give up. You will be constantly challenged in every area of your life until you start dancing along. And I know that sometimes you really don’t want to dance, because it feels so painful and vulnerable – me too! But I do know that our soul-universe is a compassionate choreographer, and builds in breaks exactly when we most need them.
Dance with your fire
That raging fire within needs to be heard, seen, felt. We cannot continue to only release a little steam at a time: whilst we learn to go within, we must also learn simultaneously let our wildest, fieriest selves out – in full integrity and from a place of compassionate wholeness.
“Connect directly with that fire within, and really ask it what it wants to say. More fundamentally, what does it want to feel, beyond all conditioned expectations and norms?”
This is what the world really needs right now.
This is the key to our exponential health crisis.
This is how we truly heal, both individually and as a planet.
This is NOT selfish, irresponsible, ungrounded ranting.
This is NOT learning to be “better”, “more woke”, “more developed” or even “more conscious”.
This is unlearning, unveiling, rewilding, untaming, fully expressing.
Allowing all of our selves.
Dancing with our soul-universe, shifting our visceral connection from outer to inner, and moving intuitively from that place.
Honouring and expanding into our Wholeness.
I challenge you today to be brave. Lift the veil, connect directly with that fire within, and really ask it what it wants to say. More fundamentally, what does it want to feel, beyond all conditioned expectations and norms? Write it, paint it, play it, sing it, dance it – allow it to come through you unfiltered. You don’t need to share with anyone unless you feel called to.
The logical, linear world will not support you in this. But your soul-universe contract demands it, and will never cease to demand it. It’s up to us to be brave now, and let the unveiling begin.