My book, Ignite Your Intrepid Soul: A courageous home for your human heart, is here!
I want to share one of the two dedications in my book. The first dedication is to my sons and the second is below. It’s to the magical women who came before me who could not be – who were not allowed to be or for whom it wasn’t safe to be – all they were.
To the magical women who came before me:
To those who did not have the opportunities I have, who could not make the choices I am able to make, who dimmed their lights and made themselves smaller to survive physically, emotionally, and spiritually: I honor you and I thank you. The sacrifices you made to stay safe and the burdens you bore in the name of generational womanly duty have not been forgotten.
I hope that I, along with this book, contribute to the ending of a cycle of smallness suffered by women who were and are meant to be sweeping, magical, vibrant forces of creation and healing. I hope that I, in all of my freedom and safety in this lifetime, honor the freedom and safety you did not have. I hope that in living in my truth and in my vibrant magic, I may offer your legacies a home.
For years I avoided what and who I am. I was born like this – seeing and talking to people who’d crossed over, knowing things I “shouldn’t know,” and being incredibly energetically perceptive – and it often felt out of control or not allowed. I was so afraid of rejection. Of not belonging. So I ignored it.
I remember when I couldn’t hold it in anymore – when it was literally causing me pain to conceal who I was. I remember, the summer before starting Intrepid Eleven, having lunch with – and I quote (myself) – the ten people who, if they turned away from me, would break my heart. I needed to tell these people, my friends, who I was. And, if that changed us, I needed to face it. With anxiety and some tears, I basically confessed my deepest truths to my dearest friends, terrified they’d forever reject me.
Of course, none of them did. None of them. In fact, many cried too. And then told me deep, personal stories about death or spirituality. They didn’t reject me at all. In fact, they each confessed their own truths.
What began as me needing to shore up love and acceptance turned into profound moments of connection – love and acceptance totally forgone conclusions. In my bravery, I created a safe, loving, truth-filled space. And my friends stepped right into that space with me.
Telling the truth beget more telling of the truth.
That was the summer that I really began to heal myself. And it’s been a road. A road to self acceptance and self love and resisting the tug to play small and safe.
These fears came up again as I wrote and published this book.
It’s terrifying to put the real you out there. It’s gut wrenching to stand up, in nothing but naked, raw, pure truth and offer something of yourself to the world. But, in doing so, I learned something really profound: the more I fiercely told myself the truth of me, and the more I supported and loved me, the less that fear gripped me.
I can’t control what people say behind my back. And I know what they say because some brave ones say it to my face – I’m going to hell, I’m a crazy or hysterical female, I’m not serious. I can’t control that, no matter how honestly I show up, people will see and receive me from where they are. The key is: that isn’t my responsibility. It’s not my job to make people understand or accept or love me. It’s my job to stand in my truth, with integrity and honesty, and consistently be my own support system.
It’s taken me a long time to get here. And I’m not done. There are days or moments when those comments – other people’s projections (and I know that’s what they are) – sting my heart or bind my feet. And I have to dig deep and heal the part of myself that absorbs that. I imagine it’ll be a life long process. And, when I can’t do it for myself or on the days I feel weak or afraid or alone, I do it for the women who came before me who couldn’t do what I’m doing today. The women who were magical and healing and were persecuted far more than I would be today.
Humanity is healed when each of us tells the truth. When we have the courage to show up and be who we are, the truth of that energy expands far and wide and brings light to secrecy, shame, and darkness. We all have the urges to hide or play small or avoid rejection, but those urges don’t come from the soul, they come from fear. It’s the urges of the soul – the urges of truth – that lead us to our rightful homes.
