Hello lovely people...it's been awhile and I discovered my RSS feed was turned off along with me spending a lot more time writing and sharing on Facebook. I am working on creating some systems so all of this flows with greater ease and I can get more of me in the world though my words and videos...so things are happening! testing here and will see if this goes out in the morning. I am sending you all love, flip flop wearing freedom, delicious wild hearted living that is shaking the world up so more and more of us is in the world. It is so time, don't you think? and let me know how your life is changing..have you bought the camper you dreamed of? Ditched the suits and only wear long skirts? Found that job you love only wear amazing suits that turn you on? Here's to us changing the world and sinking into our hearts more and more. Into softness and kindness that radiates through the world and makes it a truly welcoming place to live for all. Along with lots of ukulele playing, lots of play and joy. Because my belief is that what it is truly all about. I send you love as you create this for yourself, in your way, in your place. Love to you. K
Everyday Wild
Happy Friday loves
One of the big things I noticed in my life is that I wasn't living wild in my everyday. I would trek in Nepal, go to dance retreats and feel SO ALIVE. Then I would come home and slowly return to the everyday. I forgot to nourish and feed my wild on a daily basis. So I've learned it's the little things, the daily things that truly help me reclaim my wild. Whether it's biking around Amsterdam at night or in the rain- to feel the cold, to see other people, the buildings, the tulips. To be out in the world in more wild ways everyday. Last night I went and saw a movie and brought dark chocolate infused with chili for my movie snack. Wild for this good girl to bring in outside food, I really do love breaking rules to fuel my pleasure.
I remembered that years ago when Julie and Julia came out I went to see it in the theatre and thought- how can I sit through this movie without great food and wine? So I went to Whole Foods and bought what enticed me: red wine, organic cherry tomatoes and a piece of vegan chocolate cake. I brought my own wine glass and silverware too. I had so much fun thinking about it and doing it. I truly believe these are the every day things that help us feel alive, wild and free. Dancing in the rain, biking over cobblestone streets with no end point in mind, flirting with a man at the Butcher shop, getting an ice cream cone in January, serenading the person next to you in traffic, doing yoga on your lawn, eating breakfast in the park on your way to work, having your partner/roommate feed you fresh organic raspberries, telling your truth and feeling that zing of sensation and spaciousness. Every day we get to be wild, how lucky are we?
I would love to hear how you are being more wild in your everyday life. Share in the comments or join us on the Reclaim your Wild Facebook group.
Here's to a day of wild, alive, free living.
Wild and free as I bike around Amsterdam. Feeling alive, joyful and oh so happy.
Let your wild be your guide
Reclaiming your wild is about trusting yourself, your instincts. We get all these delicious signs, hints, nudges and what we are learning to do is listen. To trust. To act. And when we do this our lives open up in magical ways. I’ve learned to trust when to buy a one way ticket, when to have a roommate, when not to. When to eat a hamburger to help my body ground and when to juice for a few weeks. When to say yes to an invitation and when to say no. When to spend Thanksgiving by myself and when to be at a table surrounded by friends. When to stay in on a rainy night with a movie, or to sit in silence surrounded by candles and when to throw on a jacket and walk in the rain. Each moment is different. Listen and trust. There have been sunny summer days where I stayed inside all day (and a sunny summer day in Seattle is not a given) but I honored what my body and soul truly needed on that day.
This is where my freedom is: in trusting my own intuition and body over anything our culture taught me, anything from my family, from a book, a guru.
This is the sweet spot of reclaiming our wild.
Spend some time tuning into your intuition. Walk the aisles of a grocery store- forgetting everything you’ve read about nutrition/dieting (if you have) and see what your body says “YES!” to, lights up over. Forget your mind for a moment and trust yourself. I can’t tell you the number of times my body lit up over something which I then vetoed with my mind…and when I got home it was what I truly wanted and needed. I would have nourished myself in a much more profound way if I’d listened.
And I do this when I'm in Seattle too. I step out my front door and just go with no attachment, no plans. I've ended up bumping into friends and sharing meal, then walking to a farmer's market, coming home and baking. Then taking the treats to visit friends and playing with their kids. All I did was listen to keep my day open and walk outside the house and see where my body wanted to go. Then when it was in flow I cleaned my apartment, paid bills, wrote thank you cards. Everything that needs to get done, does. With so much more pleasure, joy and ease.
Walk out your front door, step off the subway with no plan. See where your body guides you. I’ve had my most incredible travel days/life days when I had no plans and let my body be my guide. One day in Florence, Italy I followed it to a leather store where the clerk was a Seattle woman working there while going to culinary school. She gave me a restaurant recommendation which felt good and led meeting the owner and then sharing a table and dinner with a wonderfully kind and interesting American man there on business. He then snuck us into a museum after hours and we finished the night off with a gelato. I could never have imagined that or set out that day that ‘plan’.
So put away the guidebooks, the to-do lists, start saying no to things that don’t light you up and see what starts coming into your life. Reclaim your intuition, your pleasure. Listen, trust and see what magic and freedom unfolds for you. It’s so so good.
Let your wild be your guide.
Finding a dairy free chocolate sorbet- thank you intuition!
Following my wild on bike in Amsterdam...a little tricky at times but the joy!
He leaned over and whispered in his french accent...
In June I was in Montreal watching the Algeria/Germany World Cup game and started chatting about soccer with a local man sitting next to me. After Germany’s victory he asked what I was doing in Montreal and I told him how I was traveling while writing a book about my journey of healing my broken heart. He turned to me and with his beautiful french accent said “sometimes when you are hurt you protect yourself and you miss out on love, fun and joy and good things.”
Yes Claude, how right you are. Yes, you do.
Yes. Yes I did.
It is deeply ingrained in us: be it PTSD, ancestral, cultural, instinctual to avoid conflict.
Fight or Flight. I fled.
I fled my body, my soul, my emotions. I hightailed it out of there all the while armoring up (I’m very good at multi-tasking).
And I spent so much time fleeing and protecting myself from potential heartache I missed out on a lot of fun and joy, of dating, of taking risks, putting myself out there creatively. Sharing my essence and love with the world. And when my heart did get hurt I didn’t do anything about it. Years ago I climbed to Everest Base Camp while sick with Himalayan dysentery. I kept trekking for days, going, digging deep into my physical strength and yet I couldn’t say to someone, “you hurt my feelings, you hurt my heart.”
My emotional strength needed a boost, not a vitamin C capsule more like an IV drip of red bull boost. I needed to learn how to protect myself with healthy boundaries rather than medieval armor so I could open my heart to love again, to show myself to the world as I truly am. To learn I deserved to be treated better and how to make that happen. To stop hiding my emotions and taking care of others before taking care of myself (I have flown enough to know I am supposed to put on my oxygen mask first). I needed to learn to quit settling for crappy treatment, poor pay, chit-chat…anything that was less than lighting me up and turning me on. Anything that was less than honoring my worth, my beauty, my value.
Claude and I talked about seeking happiness and that was certainly a part of it. Deeper than that I was seeking love, ultimately self-love so I could stand so delightfully as me and dance, share, love caper my way through the world as I am meant to, opening my heart towards myself and others. Spreading joy and love wherever I go. And the reason we had this juicy interaction? Because I dropped my armor, I didn't flee. I showed up as who I am. I talked about reclamation, about broken hearts, love capers, about reclaiming your wild and it led to a lovely conversation.
So thank you Claude, thank you universe. More please.
A prayer for our broken wild hearts
In the past few weeks I've felt a huge transformation within me, another thick layer of my Sweet Vidalia onion being peeled back and ready to be shared. A part so deep and ancient within me, so aching to come out to be seen and so scared that something so personal will be rejected, scorned, disbelieved, discarded, ignored, judged.
My broken wild heart.
For most of my life I pretended my heart wasn't broken. It went beyond the good girl mask. It was a lie so deep it almost derailed my life and it took me years of onion peeling to get to this truth. And I now know I am not alone. As I tell my stories I hear from you, and I know...
There are so many of us with broken wild hearts.
Aching to be seen, to be loved, to held. I see you. I hold you. I can feel your beautiful broken wild heart. Can you feel mine?
A few months ago I was in Montana where I always seem to find myself when I am gently peeling back a thick layer of onion. On my first night there I typed out the following. I share it with you to share my broken wild heart because that's what I'm here to do- to share all of me, so we can reclaim our wild hearts together.
'I found one of those places today, so deep inside of me that if I hadn’t paused I would have gone right over it. A piece of me that startled me and then felt like something I had known was there for so long. This piece that is so fucking afraid of letting go of the pain. How could I let this piece in, how could I ever let go of the sense of outrage I have, the depth of my heartache? It's like betraying myself all over again, silence before, and silence again? Acquiescence again? You win. You’re right. You get to walk away scott free…again. And this time by my own hands. This feels so fucking wrong. It feels outrageously, soul wounding wrong. It feels like betrayal. Again.
I pray on this.
"Guides, Angels, sister goddesses, ancestress, the Divine, Universe
I have a prayer for you. I pray for you to help me heal my heartache. To help me release all anger and hatred, rage, injustice, grief, sorrow I hold in my heart, in my cells, in my brain, in my energy field. I ask you help me see that in keeping such a hold on this story I am not helping myself heal. I ask you to help me see that justice has and will happen in ways that my brain cannot believe. That I do not need to sacrifice myself waiting for justice. And what is justice anyway? And that I do not need others to understand or honor the pain I feel. And that I do not need others to apologize in order for me to heal. I do not need them to honor my heart or my emotions. I need to do this and I must trust that I do not need them to understand to validate my experience, to help heal my heart. I offer up my impassioned surrender to you divine. I offer up my upmost letting go, to transmute and alchemize this heartache.
I ask that you surround me with your love, your light, your open hearts as I delve into this deep belief, this deep pain that If I forgive, my pain did not happen, that if I forgive, I am once again being the good girl and making it better for everyone. That I am betraying myself…again. I ask for love to this part of me that has such fear in letting go. That wants justice, vengeance, understanding. That believes, so deeply and so profoundly that if I forgive I am rolling over once again: letting the patriarchy have its way, letting the system win, that I am denying the pain, I am pretending my heart didn’t break into a million pieces, that I am being disloyal and dishonest to my sweet, precious soul and body once again. That I am not being a truth teller.
I light some candles, I ask for guidance. I ask for wisdom. I ask for grace to transmute this deep deep ancient fear and pain. For me to believe that I can release the grip on this pain and I am not dishonoring myself in the process.
I make myself a cup of tea and the tag on the tea bag says “Empty yourself and let the universe fill you up.”
I feel my heart soften. I feel my deep heartache come to the front. I love it up. I open my hands toward the sky and I surrender. “I give this to you because I have no idea what do with the heartache. I have no idea how to make this right with me. show me. guide me.”
I empty myself. I empty myself and I do my best to trust that in doing so my heart heals, that in letting go I am honoring myself in the most profound and beautiful of ways. Letting go, letting the universe fill me up, this is my worship, this is how my wild heart heals.
asking for guidance