Authentic Interconnection
I started writing this newsletter early last week, as I often do, in acknowledgement of this particular theme showing up over and over again. As it has evolved, I have had countless conversations with clients, friends, and colleagues about this exact subject with varying flavors.
It is in the field without a doubt.
It feels to me as though there are so many whom are searching for a level of authenticity in relationships across the board. That this time has dropped the layers and barriers between so many and that real, raw, vulnerable, and aligned interactions have become non-negotiable.
As we continue to pivot towards the light at the end of this dark collective tunnel, we are being propelled back into consistent interactions and relations with the outside world. How do we want to show up and meet this re-emergence with each other?
This time has impacted so many on multiple levels, it is clear that we are just beginning to feel the density of that imprint. With so much opening and providing the platform for that connection that so many have been craving, it also brings a whole host of other factors and issues with it.
It is certainly not *business as usual* as we re-emerge from the pandemic days and find our new pathways in this altered state of living and being. Life is not the same. We are not the same.
Events, interactions, dining out, traveling….none of it remains the same.
As I have written and talked about endlessly since the onset of this sweeping pandemic I truly believe that we have an opportunity to reset our entire systems and ways of moving through the world. Personal growth and development, self-reflection and inquiry, re-evaluation and re-calibration have all been at the forefront for those of us seeking to awaken and evolve as humans.
Today’s offering is around coming back together with authenticity, honoring our individual and unique stories from the past 15 months.
I was privileged to finally get back to a live music show at the amazing Red Rocks Amphitheatre last week. I ended up having an interaction and conversation with a sweet young man, a nurse, from Oregon at the end of the show. We were all feeling pretty giddy, open, and enlivened from the experience on the whole and I believe it provided him with the space of safety to let his guard down with me. In those fleeting moments, with tears in his eyes he repeated “They have no idea how much we needed this” (meaning the medicine of the live music).
He shared with me that he and his husband are both 1st responders in the medical world and are on a 6-week mental health hiatus. He told me that they live in a part of Oregon where no one believed that COVID existed so therefore ignored the precautions that were necessary. While simultaneously his daily reality was witnessing countless people dying.
This road trip that he and his husband were on was his attempt at recalibrating his system and coming back into alignment with himself. I was deeply touched by my entire interaction with this beautiful human and his story.
It was a potent reminder to me that there are infinite stories such as this one and that it is so important to take a moment to connect with others in this way. As I looked around the concert, I was flooded with insight of the magnitude of the experiences that this sea of humans had navigated and continued to navigate during these exceptional times.
I found myself moved in a way that I have not been before. In such a way of feeling the interconnection of the whole. Of every single being on the planet and this wild journey we have been on together. Yet apart.
The opportunity remains, magnified, to impact each other and the world at large consciously, authentically, and from a place of reverence for all of life.
We must honor this passage and find each other again.
Somehow. Someway.
There are so many versions of these stories. The places we have been taken and how we are landing as the dust shifts and settles in a very new way.
I recognize, and understand personally, the challenges that some individuals and families have been through. Loss of work and income, juggling children at home while trying to keep them educated, the endless restrictions, death, illness…..the iterations are plentiful.
What I believe in my heart of heart is that no matter what or how this time has impacted us, we must come together with authenticity, vulnerability, and a genuine interest in emerging as better humans than as we did when we went down into these depths.
How does that feel for you? What could that look like in your life? Where do you feel as though you could move out of the isolation (emotional, physical, spiritual) into a more authentic way of relating?
At this juncture, I believe that most, if not all of us, are longing for authentic connection.
We are all interconnected, yet, unless we choose to meet each other with authenticity we will remain separate. Perhaps no longer physically separated, yet absolutely emotionally and spiritually isolated.
If this time has taught us anything it’s that, as humans, we have basic needs for physical and emotional connection. That authenticity is an essential component to our relations and that we truly do have choice to be real, to be vulnerable, and to connect from our truest, most authentic selves.
We all have our *thing* that we have missed the most during these times. For me, it has been my in-person women’s retreats. Something magical happens when women gather with intention, reverence, consciousness, and presence. When we come together with our authentic human vulnerabilities and soft, open hearts...the possibilities of healing become magnified.
I have held off in creating these in person offerings until the right moment. Until I felt as though it was a safe and welcoming choice to make for all. I am so excited to be coming back together with fellow women seekers to move our bodies, open our hearts and witness each other in our vulnerability, and honor this massive passage that we have been through.
It is time! I have only a few spots left for this potent offering. More information is HERE. Please do not hesitate to reach out if you have any questions, concerns, and/or if you are on the fence and just need more information. I would love to connect!