A few months ago, I wrote in one of my emails how historically speaking up in groups was pretty darn terrifying to me.

And now I’m running my first in person workshop by myself this Sunday??

(booties shaking)

(also, book your tickets here)

I keep thinking about how it’s not just the things we want that are on the other side of what scares us.

It’s: who is the person that has the courage to do the things that scares you today?

When I envision what I want for my future, what I'm seeing is not simply a set of life experiences that look good on paper.

I am wondering who I am inside those experiences. I am wondering about the internal felt experience of me living through the life I want. I am wondering about the identity of who I will be, the Rachel that has grown her capacity to live with generous, dynamic range of relating to whatever life brings.

The courage to take bigger risks.

The courage to make leaps when the moment calls for it.

𓂃 ོ ☼ 𓂃

A solar eclipse occurs when our view of the Sun is obscured by the Moon. The Leo solar eclipse tonight is a total solar eclipse, a potent reset where things speed up changes.

Eclipses are moments of shedding, and of something new emerging.

I met a stranger today who talked about liminality and when he felt a shift in his identity and his role - a year where a three week trip overseas turned into a five year stay.

In every small decision you make, another choice point opens up.

The future continues to look uncertain.

There does not feel like steady ground when I think about what can keep me 'secure'. Then I feel my feet on the floor, my back on the chair and in seconds I begin to sense that maybe I am safe for now. My back supported by the chair, my feet connected to the earth. My body relaxes.

Relaxed and ready to meet the moment from my center.

𓂃 ོ ☼ 𓂃

My mentor said to me this week when I felt a familiar fear tearing me up: you know what you're doing. OWN it. feel into your fierceness.

Shame teaches us very early on that the perception of others matters more than our own, and in the process, distorts our perception of ourselves that honest expression becomes fraught with fear. Our body then intelligently inhibits the impulses that wants to move outward into expression.

As I expand into new terrain with my work even as it scares the parts of me that would rather hide and stay the perpetual outsider, the one on the periphery - I am remembering that while the habit of playing cute and sweet and lovely is all well and good and a true part of me…

I am also ready to expand my range into something new - where I feel my spine and think: maybe I do know what I’m doing.

Maybe they call it courage because you’re doing it scared.

Maybe confidence starts with repeating an action 300 times for it to become muscle memory, and 3000 times before it becomes embodied.

𓂃 ོ ☼ 𓂃

I’ve been thinking about OWNING as a way of fully inhabiting ourselves, to be full of your own energy (Leo), to let yourself just BE in whatever experience you are in and take off the self-policing for a moment.

𓂃 ོ ☼ 𓂃

own your hesitancy to take the leap

own your doubts about your capacity

own your fears of making an irreversible mistake

own your avoidance to turn away instead of meeting reality

own your ‘self-sabotaging’ attempts to move towards your dreams

own how it feels safer to think than to act, rumination a familiar habitat

own your body saying no to your desire to keep pushing through

own how you feel stuck in the mud, limbs too heavy to make a step

own your urge to rush past bracing in your body

own how you scroll for hours on repeat, checking out of a reality that feels too hard to stay in

own not ‘taking up space’ so you would not be hurt

own ‘playing small’ so you could be safe

own your ‘people-pleasing’ so other people could be pleased even if you were not

𓂃 ོ ☼ 𓂃

Own your inner lion - the fierce protector prepared to bare their teeth at what threatens to hurt you and what you care about

Own your strength, radiance, courage and creativity - the love from your heart that expands and shifts possibilities

Own what only you can uniquely express - one of 8 billion humans with your specific experiences, gifts, memories, skills, desires and dreams

Own your instinct to lead yourself along unmarked paths with only the light of your heart as the brightest torch

𓂃 ོ ☼ 𓂃

As the South Node in Leo drains away rigid images of yourself you once held as true, Jupiter in Leo is here to offer you SHEER BELIEF in yourself.

What does your heart keep leading you back to?

Join me this Sunday for Creative Expansion, a somatic workshop on courting your courage. Bring your doubts, bring your hesitation, bring your resistance and your need to ‘get it right’.

Your creative gifts is exactly what these times are calling for.

♥︎
Rachel