My Dearest Empaths,
Let’s talk for a minute about how to approach the concept that you might be an INDY Woman.
I mean, let’s face it, not everyone is one, just because they’ve gone through some challenges in their lives.
It really has much more to do with how we respond to challenging times… sometimes one after another after another.
Without judgment, let’s just state that some people are really defeated by their challenges… understandably. And look, that could be the first level of response after facing a really strong life challenge. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. We need to respect our response after life has done what I call “put a stick in our bicycle spokes.” I think most of you have probably heard that term, but if you have not… picture what happens if someone puts a stick in your bicycle spokes as you are biking along the road. The bike comes to a screeching halt, and you go flying “ass over teakettle,” over the handlebars, landing smack on the pavement or the grass.
Now, the funny, not-so-funny thing, is that I can describe that really well because I actually experienced it a few decades ago.
Riding along a very familiar bike path with my young cousin ahead of me, biking along as well, I made the mistake of wearing flip-flops to go biking. And as if that wasn’t enough, I reached my foot out to the front bike fender, thinking I could straighten it… and the spokes grabbed my flip-flop. And that’s when I went ass over teakettle… yep!
Fortunately, I landed on grass… still not a soft landing! My cousin Vicki freaked out and called 911. They came, picked me up, and took me to the emergency room where I was checked out and found not to have anything broken or terribly injured… just a twisted ankle.
My point with that is that some life challenges feel like they do exactly that… flip us “ass over teakettle,” and we go flying over our current life path… and we land on either a hard or a soft surface. Either way, can we say “wake-up call”?
I’m sure if I asked right now, you could provide me with a catalog of the kinds of challenges that life provides us along our path. Some are about relationships, some are about finances, some are about our businesses, some are about our health and well-being, and some are about our spiritual evolution, etc., etc., etc.
Now, because of my age, I’m in my 70s. I’ve experienced a few different kinds of life challenges… frightening mental health and consciousness fragmentation during my earliest spiritual awakening, unhappiness and divorce that ended my first marriage, dealing with the care and passing of both of my elderly parents, and most recently, a health challenge that ultimately landed me in the hospital, with open-heart surgery, followed by 6 months in a hospital bed, and then a period of rehabilitation.
Now, do any of those challenges turn me into an INDY Woman (or Man, let’s be fair)? No, not at all. It really depends on what I do afterward.
At this point, I want you to take time and think about and catalog your own life challenges, leading up to the most recent one.
In my next email, I’m going to share a link to one of my favorite blog posts, written a few years ago about what happens AFTER we’ve had a wake-up call from challenges like these. And we’ll keep exploring from there.
Sending love and warm blessings,
Jan
The Shaman Mama
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