Letter from my heart to your heart…

Aaaah new beginnings are so scary and exciting and energising….yet the fear can often hold me back from even beginning… especially in these uncertain times my ego mind is saying No, stay safe…..but my heart and spirit are pushing me ever onward.

‘Bless the largeness in me even when I fear it, let me be a voice in the world’

Sue Monk Kidd

‘Wobbly beginnings are Ok, you need to learn to flex new muscles, the first steps are the bravest and each step means something’

Jen Hatmaker

I listened to a Brene Brown Podcast with Sue Monk Kidd & Jen Hatmaker this week (thoroughly recommend: listen here ) and there were so many amazing quotes like the ones above that indicated I really need to feel the fear and begin….so my first step was to write to my cousin Cilla and close friend Louise who are sharing this heart and soul life journey with me and see what they think… They were so fully supportive and encouraging that now I can bravely send this letter out into the world and see who feels called to join with me in the Wise Woman Within Circle 2020.

Here is my letter to you:

Dear Kindred Spirit,

How is everything unfolding for you? Sending huge hugs xxoo

It feels crazy as I couldn’t be busier, but I keep getting a really strong call to run an online women’s circle and then last weekend and every day since an image of a fierce old healing woman cloaked in black feathers keeps appearing saying ‘gather the women, gather the women.’ She is very persistent (and a bit scary) and disappointed in me every day that I don’t act… I’ve never had a call this strong.

Truthfully I’m scared about acting on this but I’m also equally scared about not acting on this….what will I miss out on if I let this call go?  At one point last week I had an image of her giving me a cloak of black feathers….but when I didn’t act on the call to ‘gather the women’ she wanted to remove it…which felt devastating!  I have had these vivid dreams all week…last night was that my heart was poking through my skin just under my rib cage and it was terrifying, I was trying to poke it back in!

Then coincidentally or serendipitously every podcast I have listened to this week (to unwind) has been about answering the call of your heart and soul:

to birth the kind of woman who can say my soul is my own and to embody this in life is worth the risk and hardship”

Sue Monk Kidd

one step at a time may be slow but it gets you somewhere so honour each step”

Jen Hatmaker

So this is my beginning, my first step – to write it all down and run it by you…and truthfully it is energising to think about this rather than to study etc… I am sooooooo craving more heart and spirit time!

After a dream about chickens hatching on Tuesday (& one hatched in my mouth) – I woke up early and the plan for this women’s circle was there (hatched!)… this is what came to me, some of it I’d thought about before but this seemed crystal clear, I wrote it down – yet I felt so held back by fear – I think I wrote several pages of fears: will anyone participate, will it flop, will it be worth my time, will it become too difficult/stressful, will I be judged etc.  For each fear I had an equally reassuring answer from my heart/spirit….It’s like my ego is all caught up in fear while my heart and spirit are loudly saying DO THIS out of love!!! 

So here’s the vision for the circle:

The old woman very clearly said

Gather the women, light a candle and they will come

to receive love, spirit and healing.”

This healing circle online will be simple, messy and imperfect and that’s OK. It will be a chance to step out of our messy and imperfect busy lives and roles as Mums etc and step into a sacred heart and spirit space for a short while each week.  

For 30 minutes we will have a card reading/poem/reflection, meditation and begin a creative processing exercise (simple, no complicated art materials needed). This can be recorded so women can access it anytime in their busy week. Then we’ll have 30 minutes of sharing online, while we are still creating and it’s a chance to share online how our hearts and spirits are going this week and how the card reading/poem/reflection, meditation and creative processing exercise spoke to each of our hearts and spirits. 

I’ll ask women who I have a heart and soul connection with (you!) to be part of the circle and to share a reading/poem/reflection or meditation / creative exercise when it feels right to them so the circle is truly collaborative and community-driven.  This is a way for all the women involved in the circle to tune into and share from their heart and spirit, to give and receive in this uncertain time, to build their heart and spirit skills as well as gather their strength, and nurture themselves deeply to be able to handle whatever comes next.

Are you keen? Does it speak to you?

It feels so essential that we use this important time to do deep inner work to decide what really matters, to decide what we pick up and bring into our newly redesigned life and what we let go and leave behind….not only for us and our families but also for the world…

I’m really keen for the first round of the circle to explore Brene Brown’s focus on Courage, Connection & Compassion; Love, Belonging and Being Enough.  Each week would be based loosely on her guideposts to wholehearted living (authenticity, self-compassion, resilience, gratitude & joy, intuition and faith, creativity, play and rest, calm and stillness, meaningful work, laughter, song & dance from her book: Gifts of Imperfection) as a gentle reminder to our hearts and souls about what truly matters in this life.  But this would be just a loose guide, we would be guided by intuition and what feels most soul-nurturing that week.

The details are the hardest bit to finalise….but the old healing Crow-woman keeps giving me the message that details are irrelevant, they are not what this circle is about. I am to gather the women and begin. This circle needs to be simple, messy and imperfect…phew that’s a challenge for my ego mind but feels so right for my heart and spirit.

I am hoping there might be a $5 or $10 donation each week to Treesisters from each woman but not necessary if someone can’t afford it.  I’m thinking a Thursday evening, maybe 7:30 NSW, 5:30 WA time? And maybe for approx 8 weeks term 2, with school holidays off but a chance to keep this circle going each school term.
 
So what do you think?   Do you think I should feel the fear and do it anyway?  Should I despite all the crazy busyness take the plunge and just DO IT! Gather the women?

I would love you to join me and be part of this but also totally Ok if it doesn’t speak to you… Would also love your feedback about all of this vision and calling xxxx

Oooohh so scary to write all this down but so good to take the first step….thank you xxxx

Hope we get a chance to talk soon

Details and registration for our Wise Woman Within Circle are here.

Sending big big hugs, Sara  xoxo