What is it that we will be today, you and I?

Morning comes, and I ask my thin sheet of paper what we will become. The words irrelevant compared to the intention. My journals carry an ancient wind of wisdom as the trees they came from and my daily wing and a prayer is to honor that.

Writing has been my first resource of healing before all else. Before any voice could whisper “but is it it good enough. You’re not a writer. What could you have to say that would matter,” I heard the other one. The one that knows the power of sharing a story. The one that isn’t afraid of the tales of terror and triumph that bring you to your knees with your guts spilled to the floor. The eternal voice that will get down there with you and listen. As depression, empathic vortex’s of other people’s stuff, and your every day emotional hill-slide, wrapped me up in everything I cannot say, I learned to write.

I didn’t so much as learn to write as I just showed up to paper out of desperation. Because who else would listen? Who do you talk to when you’re scared that accepting help from a therapist may mean something’s wrong with you? Who could possibly understand when you can’t even verbalize your feelings? Paper is patient. Paper wants nothing from you than your truth. I could spill myself out while no one was looking. I could make a mess, scratch and arrow with a pen, point to the dark and say hey, I’m going to lean into you for a little while and enjoy it, without any prescription or commentary from the “wow, that’s dark” crew.

It wasn’t until after my son was born that I realized I couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t contain the shadows to the page without them spilling over. I ran out of tools. With Divine intervention no doubt, I found a yoga therapist who, like my journals, was not afraid of the shadowy side of things. The very first question she asked me was “who are you?” — I didn’t know. Postpartum depression, walking depression and the overall sense of being “lost” wrapped me by the ankles and took me for all I was. Sessions with her were like a complete stripping down of every layer, story and systematic conditioning I’ve been walking blind in, leaving me naked to the Nicole I’ve been from the beginning. The essential Self I just…forgot.

In eight sessions I learned how much of an empath I was. How much I unknowingly allowed other people’s stuff to stick to me; on my skin and in my heart. All of it stuck to my throat without the ability to verbalize, simply because a lot of it wasn’t mine.

Being an empath means I feel emotional tides and currents under the surface of the room, of people and their energies. By unlocking this awareness, learning that such a thing even existed, and shifting into “oh, this is a gift and not a curse,” pulled me to the surface where breathing felt spacious again. Writing felt lovely again. Words poured differently.

As a woman of 25 years at the time, I completely reshaped my view of God, Mother, Universe and the Divine Feminine. It just was part of the process, and still is. How do you push a lily up from the mud of the pond without the mysterious hand of God/ess? I tossed aside all dogma, opinions, traditions and became open to learning the essentials of my relationship to Life. In turn, learning the essentials of my Self. A faith grew in me that I remember having as a little girl. Where church was amongst the trees and the choir the song of animals. Where communion became relationship to the land and I, a part of it. I began to believe that my song is as important as the birds’. I unfolded into a deep, resounding, unwavering faith in a timelessness of Love that I knew lived within me.

And I wrote about it. Poetry became my daily life in how I saw the shadows dance on the walls. Poems were being written through the dance of Divine Masculine and Feminine. I learned how to write with gratitude and grace for Self.

How you view the world, is how you view yourself and how you view yourself is how you view the world.

I think we discover ourselves and our relationship to the world within our writing. Our voice on the page is a direct reflection of our attitude to our reality. Sometimes an angry worded letter gives darkness a little breathing room, a puff of smoke released from the fire so Love can have a chance. Other times, a whimsical collection of words blooms from your heart and you can’t help but give yourself over to it.

All of this to say, I believe in many healing modalities exist and matter and are encouraged. But there is something to your own written words that engage both your conscious and unconscious thought in a dance that I personally haven’t found anywhere else. Yoga, for example, is like a sacred text for my mind-body-soul and I continue to heal in that 2x5 sanctuary, but when I write, there is an active, tangible conversation with an Ancient and half awake voice within me that does not want to be left out.

It is my prayer, that the Sunday Prompts provide you with an opening conversation to your own Ancient voice. I dream that they offer you sanctuary to grow in comfort with your writing voice. As always, respect the wisdom when to keep it tucked safe inside your journal. Share it here when the thread pulls you to connect, because one pair of eyes may be waiting to read your words, like a string of one heart tugging on an other.

with love,

~N

To learn more about me and what I love to do, visit my website, nimayoga.co