Has your soul outgrown your life?

I can think of 3 distinct moments when I knew my life had become too small, or better said, that my soul was screaming for something more.

Ironically these 3 moments all emerged in mid-life. The first moment arrived shortly after my 40th birthday.

This isn’t surprising as mid-life seems so often to be a time of reckoning. We have built up a life, a persona, a career – and then suddenly it no longer feels authentic or true.

I wish that someone would have told me that these moments of reckoning were not wrong, but rather right on time, saving me years of confusion and shame.

At the time of my reckonings, I thought my restlessness and yearning were a sign I was doing something wrong. I see now I was not failing, rather, I was unraveling.

In my favorite book on midlife, Dr. Jett Psaris writes “the whole point of midlife is to allow the construct of who we are and the lives we have created to fail.”

Let my life fail? What? Failure never felt like an option to me. However, I now understand that there are many experiences in life that are never meant to be resolved, rather we are meant to be dissolved by them.

Many things aided my unraveling journey toward a more authentic version of self. Dream work, meditation, listening to my physical symptoms, slowing down, leaving untenable situations, listening more to myself than others, and intuition were all guideposts on the journey.

Additionally, the arrival of the wild woman archetype in my life connected me to a Universal energy of the untamed, instinctual, authentic feminine spirit, and introduced me to other women also experiencing the flow of the wild woman through their life.

This summer I desire more conversation and practices about soul longing and deep listening. Join me this Wednesday for a conversation about perfectionism – one of the great silencers of our Soul. Starting in July, I am co-teaching a 4-week Rewilding course with my podcast co-host Kate Moreland. This fall, I’m returning to teach my signature certification course, Yoga for the Mind.

To the timing of the unraveling….