You’re always planting seeds.

I almost named this post: Music makes me feel like I was born into the wrong family (I love my folks, so much). It’s not about blaming anyone - although this could also be a phase you need to go through before you can forgive (yourself) and let love take its place.

I didn’t want to upset anyone, especially not my dad, who right now, is my biggest cheerleader on Instagram, who opened his doors for me to live with him until I know where I’m going next, who supports me in so many ways — but it just describes this momentary feeling so well!

This feeling - of not belonging to the place and the people I grew up with, the teachers and most of my past co-workers - asked me to remember who I want to be, who I am, at my core.

Whenever a song really hit me, lifting me into another realm, shifting my energy, I felt waves of grief which triggered painful thoughts like “I wish I could sing” “I wish I grew up singing and dancing alongside my people”, “I wish I had more discipline and hadn’t stop playing the guitar”, “I wish I had been more demanding about wanting to learn play the harp”.

But it’s never too late to do that, right?

I felt the grief and now I’m ready to follow my joy. To learn. To lean into the beginner’s mindset. I’m willing to make a fool out of myself - because I can laugh at myself, I can speak about the immense insecurity that I feel, when I pick up my ukulele and sing with friends for the first time in my life, not just awkwardly singing along for a few lines until I feel too weird about it and stop.

I changed the way I meet this sadness. I let it move through me and transform into a deep love for music. So I get to finally enjoy it. To let it stir something inside of me. Connect me to my emotions and body in magical ways.

My wish for you and me is:

Dance like you trusted your soul to move our body.

Sing like you never lost your voice.

Live like you were madly in love with your life.

Let this be your reminder to fall in love with who you are.

With the things that light a spark of joy and excitement within your heart.

There’s a part in Women who run with the wolves, by Clarissa Pinkola Estés, which talks exactly about this feeling of not belonging to our family (and maybe, like for me, it is more connected to society in general):

“Have you ever wondered how you managed to end up in such an odd family as yours?”

For most of us, it is true that we didn’t learn the skills or things we really need in life in order to flourish and thrive — and to serve humanity, to help nature regenerate.

If you went to school, lived and work:ed in a system you never consciously chose or created, you’ve accumulated so many beliefs, that choosing studies, jobs and relationships was maybe more about fitting in than following your own heart.

Or, like Clarissa Pinkola Estés writes “If you have lived your life as an outsider, as a slightly odd or different person, if you are a loner, one who lives at the edge of the mainstream, you have suffered.”

But if we forever stick to the story created by suffering, being a victim or survivor, there’s no space for letting in the good.

“If we stay as survivors only without moving to thriving, we limit ourselves and cut our energy to ourselves and our power in the world to less than half.”

She beautifully adds “Yet there also comes a time to row away from all that, to experience a different vantage point, to emigrate back to the land of one’s own kind. Let there be no more suffering, no more attempting to figure out, where you went wrong.”

And I would add, stop focusing on bathing in the sadness and grief about a life you didn’t live - until now. Stop making it about you, all the time - and I’m saying this to myself, too, with kindness and compassion.

Because, like Krishna Das reminded a whole room of people yesterday, you are planting seeds for your own life all the time - every single moment. ❁

So, do you want to focus on the past, what you didn’t learn, what you weren’t taught, what you didn’t experience?

Or do you want to feel into what you want? For your life, yourself, the world?

If you felt like an outsider in your school years or even later, your yearning to belong most likely grew stronger each day and informed your decisions.

Decisions that were more focused on the external world rather than evolving from your own truth, your yes and no.

And while so many people live their lives without letting the heart lead — because they don’t know better, or just never sat long enough with themselves to feel their own heartbeat — it’s probably not a path you want to continue. Because at some point, you found yourself in a life that doesn’t truly feel like your own - and this is human! We just didn’t experience the rituals and education to nourish trust in our own knowing.

Waves of dissatisfaction, tension, lethargy, numbness or unhappiness are a result of a life that was focused on external cures and change. A life focused on seeking happiness outside of ourselves, thinking this next thing will make us happier. But something we buy or achieve won’t bring us lasting happiness. Emotions ebb and flow.

I love how Krishna Das pointed out that desire itself is not a bad thing. It’s the attachment to the result that causes suffering. Depending on something external to satisfy us. Feeling love because someone else loves us.

So how can we change the pathways of our own programming, our patterns and thoughts? How can we stop believing all of our thoughts and begin to question what’s actually serving our life (and thus the lives of others)?

By slowing down.

Our lives are so busy by now, that slowing down can feel like missing out on something, like we’ll never make it, if we pause.

But slowing down is a necessity if we want to live a life in alignment with our own truth, our values and needs. If we want to draw our dreams into reality and embrace our gifts.

If we want change, it needs to start within.

If we make space for spending time in the present moment, really not doing anything, coming back to the present moment over and over again, we’re training our muscle of deep listening, of being able to tune into our own heart.

In the beginning, and probably over and over again, it can be the most uncomfortable place. Because you will see what you’ve pushed aside, buried and are afraid to admit.

And it is so hard for most people to stay in this experience because they don’t love themselves. Not in a way that can hold the pain and sadness and embrace radical honesty.

That’s why so many say, meditation is not working for them. I’m just thinking too much, feeling too much.

You don’t even need to meditate, just sit. For a couple of minutes and be curious. Come back to this moment. Meet yourself. Slow down. Sit with yourself, without doing anything.

It’s only in moments of stillness where your inner truth can unfold.

And it might even need boredom, allowing restlessness to show up, to face what’s been your real driving force. The mind (disconnected from the heart), stories, pressure to achieve, expectations, fear, ...?

To allow yourself to ask: what do I actually want to feel? And how can I shift into this energy? Without depending on someone or something else to feel it (for a short amount of time)?

It might be your own breath. Nature. Rest.

Or, continue to do, create, get things done, solve, figure out. I can’t recommend it, I’ve tried it.

But I always came back to the realisation that in order to live intentionally and authentically, to be happy and peaceful, it needs space to feel, reflect, be. And this means slowing down.

For me, ritual is a daily ingredient of living a slow, intentional life. A life that draws in joy and thriving. Adventure and peace. Connection and community. Self love and self expression. Receiving and giving.

“Thriving means, now that the bad times are behind*, to put ourselves into occasions of the lush, the nutritive, the light, and there to flourish, to thrive with bushy, shaggy, heavy blossoms and leaves. It is better to name ourselves names that challenge us to grow as free creatures. That is thriving. That is what was meant for us.

Ritual is one way in which humans put their lives in perspective, whether it be Purim, Advent or drawing down the moon. Ritual calls together the shades and specters in people’s lives, sorts them out, puts them to rest.”

— Clarissa Pinkola Estés

Reflect

• What’s something your heart is longing for? Something that’s been in the back of your mind for a (long) while, but life seemed to be in the way or there was always something more important. What sparks joy in your heart?

• Where are you holding on to old stories about what you didn’t learn or can’t do?

• What do you want? A recommended journaling prompt: I want…

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The next post (free for members) will focus on Leo Season, which insights we want to remember from Cancer Season and a ritual for connecting with your heart, honouring the younger versions of yourself, so you can slowly, softly but steadily let go of survival mode and lean into new ways of being (rested, aligned, joyful, willing to let the heart lead the way).

*If you do find yourself in “bad times” please don’t lean into faked or positivity. What you’re experiencing is real and human. Remember that you’re not alone, even if your thoughts are telling you otherwise. There’s always a way to be held, supported. By yourself and someone else. Please reach out, if you want recommendations ♥