Journal Prompts to consider before, during, or after reading this blog:
- Where in your life are you feeling like you need to fight for something? Is it exhausting or energizing you?
- What is the difference, for you, between sacred fierceness and fighting?
- How do these two feel different in your body? In your breath?
- How do you want to embody your sacred fierceness more in your life right now?
A few weeks ago, I was talking to my friend Betsy and I said, “Betsy, I do not want to have to be the warrior anymore.”
You can hear the exhaustion in that statement.
Well, I believe, because I experience, that there is always a divine dance of Creation going on. A sacred unfolding.
In that statement of mine, there was exhaustion, but there was also a little stuckness. I had tired of being a warrior along the way….
Also, simultaneously a few weeks ago, my friend Lisa sent me a picture in a text message and let me know that she felt guided to set up a place for me on her prayer altar. I was surprised because we hadn’t talked about an exact thing that would have prompted this, but I wasn’t surprised because I know that Lisa is always listening to the divine and if she felt to do it, there was a reason why.
Lisa is a friend that continually makes magic and I truly love to notice and weave the Mystery with her.
In the center of this prayer altar was a picture of me. The layout of everything on the altar was astonishingly beautiful and thoughtful, but the picture surprised me because it was an old photo that I’d had on the back of my first business cards. She’s had this for years.
The photo, I realized in that moment but also more deeply throughout the next few weeks (that’s what I mean by “weaving”), was historically very significant to me because it was the first time that I “saw myself.”
I had gone in for professional headshots, and the photographer nudged me to take off my sweater and do a few shots in my flimsy old tank top, that truly I felt at home in.
The photo, when I saw it, still a school principal at that time, was strength. It was me. It was the me, underneath, that I felt but that I didn’t always know how to express, and here it was embodied.
And then, that was the photo that showed up from Lisa. A reminder.
And then I said, “Betsy, I don’t want to have to be the warrior anymore.”
Well, then a few weeks went by, things happened, and I did an 11 day spiritual practice that truly helped to regain so much life force, and then as I cleared energy, of course this affected things in outer relationships (as it always goes.)
And as I was witnessing an old pattern arising related to men & masculine, I noticed I felt different. I told Betsy, “I felt fear for a minute, but then I felt strength.”
The strength was different. It wasn’t a fighting strength. Younger-me had a lot of fighting strength, and then that was lost, or rather, let go. I grew tired of always being resilient. But (and I’ve written about this elsewhere), that was okay. Because fighting strength requires the nervous system, and one day that will tap out. True strength and resiliency comes from a different place. Turns out I’ve been cultivating it for some time, but am just realizing it.
Last year, I went deep deep down into the space of my own heart. I got so familiar with the aches and beauty, and I came to know love differently.
As it turns out, from that place is also where strength returns.
I was sitting in prayer this morning, and I asked, “Divine Shekhinah, what do I need to know right now?”
And in dropped the message, “The Sacred Warrior in you is a part of your divinity. It is sacred. Feel it now.”
And I sat with that message, the frequency of the Sacred Warrior, with the picture from years ago, the realization that Lisa had helped to evoke this via her prayer altar, and a part of me consciously returned.
Fierceness is required. Sacred Fierceness and the Warrior come through the space of the Heart, and can be trusted. Some things are worth standing for, worth being fierce over.
My path requires fierceness. I am here to disrupt common narratives and repattern aspects of patriarchy. I am here to introduce new information and tell stories. To be me and live my purpose requires the Sacred Warrior.
I am grateful to re-incorporate this, to walk in integrity with this divine energy, to the weaving, to the Mystery, to true sacred sisters Betsy, Lisa and more. I am grateful to look, once again, at this picture and see a true essence, and welcome it.
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
― Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of “A Course in Miracles”
Photo credit https://www.heatherhamborphotography.com/