Assess your readiness for summer’s transformation
“Who are you? Tell me about yourself.”
Seven years ago this question floored me as I sat in a therapist’s office on the cusp of what would become a transformational breakdown of my body from chronic overing.
At the time, I couldn’t answer with anything else other than, “I’m a professor. I’m a mom.”
Ask me that same question today – who are you? – and I’ll tell you a radically different story that involves embracing summer’s transformative powers.
I’ll tell you a story of a woman who went out on an 11-day wilderness quest a year ago–holding fear, curiosity, and deep calling of something bigger. She sat under the thundering sky in the San Juan Mountains fasting and crying out:
“Who am I? How can I serve this world?
I love this Earth and our destruction of her is unbearable.
How can I learn to dance between grief and love?”
As that woman left her forest nest, the answer came:
“You are a Moth with Stained Glass Wings. The one who cross-pollinates for connection and embodiment to grow seeds of self-awareness, skills, and resilience. The one who crosses between night and day, dark and light to rewild wholeness with colorful perspectives.”
As I sit outside today under the apple tree watching the swallow tail and the cabbage moth, I see how my personal transformation from a narrow, role-based identity to a purposeful one came after an honest assessment of my relationship to Mother Nature.
Last week I shared my 4 step process of working through mindset and behavioral shifts. It starts with assess, where you cultivate your self-awareness skills to evaluate the current state of things more accurately.
Cultivating our assessment skills is critical in our own personal and professional development. Self-awareness is a continuous journey of knowing yourself and how others know you. Since humans are relational and communal, this self-awareness supports our relationships and effects with how we lead, teach, mentor, guide, etc. Plus, humans are notoriously bad at self-evaluation without external feedback. (Don’t get stuck navel gazing for too long, friend.)
Our modern world lacks enough true elders to give us that honest feedback. In hindsight, I can clearly see how Nature has been in regular dialogue with me.
For example, when I look back at last summer as I mentally, emotionally, and physically prepared for that 11-day backpacking quest, I felt in my gut the need to purge. The purging started with material possessions and physical health habits, both of which prepared me for the emotional and mental purging that the quest would create.
Being in dialogue and open to feedback and assessment requires a reciprocal relationship - like an apprenticeship. The historical context of the word apprenticeship suggests a commitment where two - the student and the teacher - are bound to each other. Where the student is under the care of the other. In an apprenticeship you learn an art and skill under the experienced guidance of a mentor. Who better to learn from than Nature. In an apprenticeship to Nature, you are invited into your soul-work as a pathway to heal and create a life that is mind-body-soul-Earth aligned. Intentional and mindful practices of deep play, devotional practices, rest and restorative time, creativity, and embodied action help us learn how to more accurately assess ourselves for growth.
Summer is a wonderful time to feel alive with Nature’s mentorship and in dialogue for feedback. I want to share with you some reflection questions from my workbook that was part of last month’s Create your Restorative Summer workshop. To step into your apprenticeship with Mother Nature consider these:
What is She saying to you as you sit with her and observe?
Where are you saying 'yes' to Her invitations to play and pleasure?
Where is She inviting you to sit and slow down?
And on the other side, where is She opening up greater productivity for creativity, projects, writing, passion play?
What is summer asking you to embody? Where can you pause to feel more embodied and present this summer?
Living a life as an apprentice to Mother Nature so that She can help you answer the question of who you are at your core. Are you ready to see the real you that the world needs right now?
If this is something you’d like to explore with a mentor, someone to help guide you, let’s chat. I have two 1:1 mentorship coaching spots available starting in August.