Sometimes I have to go right back to the source
You might not know it if you just met me on the street, but I am a warrior woman. Most people who see me out and about in my town might say soccer mom, yes, frazzled grocery shopper, sure, warrior? Probably not. The thing about warrior women is that they are just normal women, fighting battles inside that they may never tell you about, but they are battles none the less.
Being a warrior woman, to me, means that I'm a fighter. Not in a puff out my chest and blare my voice at you every chance I get way, but in a deep, strong, personal survival way. It is usually quiet, inside work that most people don't notice. It is one of the most difficult jobs on earth, for me, to fight for myself.
I had learned over the years to let people have their way, to give of myself, to not rock the boat. It seemed easier than always fighting out loud, and honestly, most of it took place when I wasn't paying attention. When you are distracted by a job that drains the life out of you, you don't always have the energy to fight for your right to pizza over hot dogs. When you are going on two hours of sleep with newborn babies, you give up the fight about laundry, you don't have it in you to care. Then you start thinking that you'll just go along with whatever plans are made because you have too much to worry about as a wife, mother, and worker to think about what you really want.
All of this sounds silly and I'm sure every wife and mother out there can relate on some level. But what happens while you are tired and distracted and exhausted, is that you can lose you. You can lose your voice, your power, and your sense of self. No one took it from you, you just let it slip away. This is where I found myself, and this is also where I became a warrior.
I decided I was worth fighting for and that not knowing where my voice was was killing me. Every time I did something that I didn't want to do to please someone else, I sank further away from me. Every time I didn't share my feelings so that I didn't make someone else uncomfortable, I suffocated.
Deciding that I was not going to do that anymore was a process. In fact I didn't realize that I was doing this warrior work until someone close to me pointed it out to me. I just thought I was having some confrontations, some upsets in my life, some changes. I thought that I was having problems honestly. I kept having people upset with me. I kept losing things that I thought were important and serving me but no longer seemed to be working out.
The truth was that I was actively seeking out myself. I wanted to know what I wanted, what I felt, what mattered to me, and what my voice sounded like. I fought for the right to have a say. I fought for my best interests and the interests of my kids. I fought to be heard and seen in places where I had been silent and invisible. I started to see that some people only liked me if I did and said what they wanted but that my true voice was not welcome.
I realized that I was not taking good care of myself and making sure that I was in relationship with people who would want me to be well. I needed people around me who would play nice, see me, and I was willing to fight for them. If you are not on my team, I don't think we can play. Sounds silly I know, but have you ever sat back and evaluated the people around you and if they are healthy and good for you? There were some surprises in that for me. I don't have to kick those people out of my life, but I do need to adjust my expectations of them and my interactions with them.
Warrior work is hard. Like exhausting. Overwhelming. Walking upstream on slippery moss covered rocks kind of work. Fall asleep whenever you relax kind of work. Why? Because you are engaging your whole body system. In order to know who you are and what you need and want, you have to pay attention to yourself and your interactions with others. How do I feel? What is happening in my thoughts? What is happening in my body? Do I have words for this? Do I want something? Do I need something? Does this feel good, sound right, sit well with me? What does my head say? What about my gut? Am I well? Did I get enough sleep? How about the food I put in my body? Did I move around enough today to keep the energy flowing in my body? Is this person safe? How do they make me feel? What is our dynamic? Does it serve me?
To be awake in your life, is exhausting at times. The only way I know to handle this is to connect to a source. It can be through prayer, it can be through music, nature sounds, or watching a sunset. Last week for me it meant laying down on the snow covered earth under the trees. I needed to feel something solid and real. I needed to know that something more powerful than me was in charge of the world. I needed to feel the cold, hear the wind, and watch the birds.
Warrior work cannot be done alone. It is too much. You have to have a way to fill up and get some power or energy from the outside. No one can do warrior work alone. I am grateful to nature and its wonders that remind me in a way that I can see and hear and feel, that there is a source of energy that creates beauty daily without any help from me. I need that in my life. I'm still tired but I know that sometimes you have to put a lot of work in when something in new and that it won't always be this hard.
The next time you see a frazzled looking soccer mom laying under the trees, leave her alone. She is filling up. She is all done and admitting defeat to mother nature, who has the ability to fill her back up with hope of beauty. She might be crying or yelling or dancing and hugging trees. Do not be alarmed, it is part of the process. She is fighting for herself in a world that would prefer her to forget.