The Drumbeat of My WHY
There is a dirty little secret, a driving force to why we do the work that we do. There’s the talent, the characteristic, the way of being that’s always been there. And then there’s the pain, the conundrum, the needling mis-belief that drives the necessity of the work forward, because damn it, we need a solution.
This has been mine, in the words of a journal entry: “I need to sacrifice my soul to survive. I cannot remember when I didn’t feel this way or when I wasn’t fighting to prove otherwise.”
The why, the resounding drum beat, of the journey that led me to this work was: I do NOT need to sacrifice myself or my soul to survive. It’s through my soul and the deepest care and honoring of myself that I thrive.
Oh, how we want to push that away, in a million ways, every second of the day.
What I’m offering in Saraswati Circle, I had to create for myself: a place in which I could bring my entire self and my entire body of wisdom to bear on not only what work I do but how I do it. There was no room in the masterminds I was in for mystic guidance. Nor was there sufficient room for my relationship with work and money: fluid, detached, curious and indirect. At the same time, work around feminine leadership, intuitive business and manifesting didn’t land with me. It didn’t feel grounded enough. Yoga practices embody wisdom at every level of being, and that’s what I wanted from an integrated approach to growing my business. Beyond that, I’ve come to witness that the approaches taught are, much like the strategic, metric-driven masterminds, contrary to the qualities of my relationship with work and money. So, I’ve literally experimented on myself. Twice, I’ve found holistic business support for myself, each time through invitation of a colleague who also lives and works this way, experimenting with bringing their entire selves to bear on their work, trusting the guidance of their own wisdom first, surrendering to the wild dance of the soul and the practical demands of life.
Here’s what I’ve learned: Your entire being possesses soul wisdom. You are literally embodied in a particular way. We think of our soul as this mystical thing, a whisper in our ear, a pull in our gut, the silence of meditation, but our soul is embedded in our biology and in our chemistry. Our entire being expresses the wisdom of our soul, and it expresses the same characteristics consistently, whether in the mind, the body or what we would call the soul.
That is the power and the genius of embodied spiritual practices.
That is the power and the genius of dharma: it IS us. We are it, through every fiber and every cell, every thought and every action, every desire and every dilemma.
What if we harnessed it, what if we understood it consciously and used it, instead of fighting against ourselves?
That is this work: cultivating and mastering awareness of your embodied soul and using it to guide you, in everything.
Make no mistake. This is a radical act. It is a completely different way of living and working. It is countercurrent to everything we are taught, modeled and bombarded with by our culture.
It is a radical act of self-trust, self-care and surrender to not only live this way, but to work this way. Ultimately, it is a radical act of personal and cultural transformation.
In one simple sentence: I want to thrive in the world without sacrificing myself.
What is the drumbeat of your why?