“The wide expanse of sky
echoes your heart’s desire
and you glimpse for
a clear moment
the wings of your own soul soaring.”

—Stephanie Jenkins

Today I share some personal news with you today in the hopes that it may be nourishment for your own journey of becoming. I believe our stories are part of our medicine.

This week I will officially leave my 20 year career as a public school teacher, a role that has defined my entire adult life to date.

And if I include the institution of education as a whole, I have been ensconced in that milieu for all but the first 5 years of my life.

Needless to say, this is a BIG ending for me.

Like many endings, it has been a long time coming. A slow dissolution of form into formless.

For the past few years, the profession which has helped hone so many of my gifts, talents and passions, has started to become more stifling and less enlivening.

Slowly I cut back my hours from full-time to 80% to 60%…in part, to create more space for my work as a Soul Companion and sacred space holder. But also simply to have more room to be.

Teaching started to feel like a well-made dress in my closet. When I look at it on the hanger, I think, “That’s a great dress!”

But when I put it on, I find I can’t breathe as fully or move my arms as freely.

It simply no longer fits.

I’ve grown larger in many ways over the years, and as the shape of me changes, so must the shape of my life.

From faith to marriage to career, I have been in a slow and lengthy process of renegotiating the definitive structures of my life.

Last October, I was visited by one of my typical “stressful teacher dreams.” At the end of this particular dream, after leaving the school, I looked back to see that the school building had been constructed at the bottom of a river bank and as a result the river could not flow.

I woke with the message ringing like a bell, loud and clear: this work was blocking my flow, my life-force.

My mantra for the past few years has been a few lines from Rilke’s poem:

May what I do flow from me like a river,

no forcing and no holding back,

the way it is with children

Sometimes the Dream Maker doesn’t pull any punches.

Since then, it’s been a tumultuous few months of questioning, wrestling, and soul-searching. I knew I needed a change, but how? When? What? (I received some wonderful 1:1 support from Megan Leatherman, vocational guide, whom I highly recommend).

Through the process of sifting through my own needs, values and fears, I was able to move from panicked efforts of trying to figure out “what’s next!?” into a spacious surrender into the mystery of not knowing.

I finally accepted that it is time to let the familiar thing go in order to create space for the new thing to arrive.

Simple wisdom, but not easy to live.

One of the seductive stories of patriarchy is that if we tie ourselves to an external figure of power, aka Prince Charming or perhaps a good-enough 9 to 5, we can live “happily ever after” in the myth of arrival.

Capitalism adds the caveat that if we do decide to leave Prince Charming, it ought to be for a better catch with a bigger castle.

The over-culture teaches us to prioritize and accumulate comfort and security, and to find our wealth in the external.

But Earth offers us a different wisdom. She eschews stability for growth, and teaches us the power we need will come from within and be supported from beyond.

Earth tells us that after the release of the old and before the birth of the new, there must be the emptiness of the space between.

The Earth is always changing as she moves through her seasons. And come spring, she asks us to take the risk of moving up and out. To crack open the shell, leave the nest and expand one’s shape into a wider sky.

The truth is to be alive is to change, evolve, grow, die and be rebirthed again and again.

This life/death/rebirth cycle of Earth is also the pattern of our own psyches. We are meant to dance the spiral, turning like the moon in ever-changing expressions of ourselves.

Even still, let me tell you, it is hard to embrace change!

In a culture of linearity, conformity, certainty and control, what is natural has become counter-cultural. It is scary to give up the security of a cushy pension and a stable paycheck, the identity of an admirable societal role, and the comfort of the expected and familiar.

Learning to follow the rules and be the good girl in the eyes of the powers that be was my chief survival strategy as a young person.

So I breathe a lot of grace into the parts of me that tremble as I take this leap out of the familiar. And like a fledging bird, I trust the knowing within me that tells me it is time.

I may not know what is next in terms of a paycheck or the shape of my days, but as I feel the energy gather in my veins to propel me forward, I know I am ready.

Not only that, I trust I am supported.

The blooming rose unfurling towards the sun; the fledging chick opening wings to greet the air; the rosy-cheeked babe resting in her mother’s arms all show us the beauty and necessity of tender emergence and the support that will meet us as we open towards the new horizon that calls.

As John O’Donohue put it, may you trust the longing “that disturbs you when you have settled for something safe.”

Pssst….know someone who might like this post? Pass it on!

Connecting to the body’s wisdom and the longings of our soul are important aspect of the work I do as a 1:1 Soul Companion.

What to read more? Check out these related posts:

When to Take the Risk of Flight

Shine Like the Sun

Tending to your Egg-cellence