Four years ago I was feeling very stuck, depressed I was in a job that should have been a dream for most people (good pay, great co-workers, growth opportunity); I was just starting to process my mother's death and the sale of my childhood home; my kids were growing quickly and no longer babies; we had just bought a huge new home in a brand new up and coming subdivision; and I was feeling drawn more and more to a simpler life. During this period, I began wandering more - hiking, exploring, gardening, feeling an itch to travel, and also beginning to re-establish my consulting business. The more I explored, the more I felt the itch to continue to go both deeper and higher. As the saying goes - Two roads (streams) diverged in a yellow wood and was feeling called to the one less taken.
Shortly after that, I left my 9-5 job, feeling like I had achieved what I set out to there and feeling a strong desire to be my own boss and set my own goals and missions. This change let me create my business with my own mission of public service and outreach to help support communities. It also let me be available for my kids when they needed me but also to travel some more independently. I moved into a smaller house with a LOT more land. I adopted my two wildling dogs, drastically expanded my garden, and began settling back into a simpler life. I am now doing work I love, in an relaxed environment and pace where I select the work I want to focus on and when I want to work. I have land that has a wildness and rusticness to it that suits me. During this transition, I have been able to embrace my inner hippy and wild side as well as my nurturing and mothering side. I no longer fight the need to conform and fit a particular vision or model. I am able to have my animals and garden and space to just wander. And I am able to fully invest in the relationships and connections that feed my spirit. Through a lot of internal work, and external work, I have consciously set out to make this shift - my life may look unorthodox but it suits me.
One of the greatest feelings in the world is when someone comments to me how much happier and more content I seem and how this life seems much more suited to me than where I was. And I think my relationships with my children, loved ones, and friends are all stronger now because I am more fully centered and authentically me.
The last several years have been a major time of transition and resurrection for me. During this process, I have reconnected with my own inner guides and learned to identify the things that ground and feed my spirit. This process has included a lot of deep reading, writing, exploring, building my toolbox to help me through the difficult periods, connecting with myself/my anscestors/and the natural world around me. Each day that I progress along this path I feel stronger and more excited about the doors and opportunities that are presenting themselves.
Over this time I really learned that I needed to fully ground myself - to dig deep to discover my own roots and where I needed to go when I need to replenish myself. For me - my roots are in the natural world. When I hit times of struggle or the noise gets to loud - I go outside to the woods or the water - to hike and listen to the sounds of the woods, to my ancestors, to mother nature. And I consistently find love and acceptance and support and strength in those settings.
As Arlia and I continued to talk and explore our own journeys, we wanted to develop a way to share these with other women. This isn't an empowerment program - it's not even directly about leadership - it's about digging deep and helping each other as women - about building the freedom to make the leap when you feel like you are on the brink or in need of finding what is next. In our culture we have moved away from our ability to truly connect with each other and support each other in flight - the way the geese do when flying north and south.
Roots and Wings is our opportunity to share with you and learn from each other about how we can continue to find ourselves, our voices, and our dreams and to stretch each other to reach out and soar toward those things that scare, strengthen, and enliven us. We dive into those areas that we need to explore, challenge, and develop; we will dance and hike and sit and listen and talk; we will learn to receive and to open ourselves and to share; to push when necessary and to sit quietly when necessary. Journaling, reading, discussion. Spending time connecting to each other and to mother nature and to father time. Getting outside of our comfort to get more comfortable.... To create our circle and community of strong and soaring women..... We want to build communities that will continue beyond the program itself to create ongoing change and growth for us all.....
Please join us for this exciting opportunity - or send us your thoughts/ideas/questions about it.... We love hearing other ideas and experiences!
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