Have you ever had a transformative moment and you say to yourself, from now on, I’m going to life life differently? You feel in that moment perfect clarity. You know body and soul, this is it. You know this is the way you’re meant to live in world. This is most important.
And then a day, a week or month later, you’re back to normal.
You’re back to the worries, the frustrations, the small dramas that make your days difficult and your heart heavy.
This weekend I staffed the Woman Within Training Weekend. Think personal development and heart transformation. Think women stepping into their power and recognizing their greatness. Women gathered from all over the world to support 32 women step into their greatness.
Magic.
When I went through my own weekend, it changed my life. Before the weekend, I held people away from me. I was afraid they would leave or go away if they knew the real me, so I wore a mask of inauthenticity. During my weekend I saw what it cost me… Deep relationships, connections, I felt my loneliness. I also felt how deeply it drained me. Holding a mask was exhausting.
During that weekend I was liberated. I felt free and I felt myself shaken to my core, broken down, yet broken open.
The weeks and months after, I would remember. The further it got away from me, the fuzzier it got, like a dream after waking. My body had this memory of my experience, yet I would catch myself in my old pattern.
So what do you do when the clock strikes midnight? The magic fades? How do you make a transformative moment stick and remember the message of your heart?
Find your sisterhood of support
After the weekend, they recommend you gather in circle with one another. Why? Because these women are your lifeline, your reminder of who you really are. I’m not talking a typical women’s circle or friendship. I’m talking about people who will push you out of your comfort zone. I have plenty of friends who are nice and will listen to drama or even stoke the fire of drama. What about sisters who will call you out? Ones who say, “How can I support you to live your most empowered life?” Ones who wake you up when you start to fall back asleep. We need women in our lives to shake us up. When we start to forget, they help us remember.
Use an anchor.
In the midst of a transformation, what can you connect to that will be a reminder? What color, shape, sound, message, symbol? When I was sobbing on the floor and deeply vulnerable with the women in the room, I broke open. I felt raw and real. I felt peaceful and connected. What would remind me of that moment? In my minds eye, I saw a fountain. It began in my belly and bubbled up through my heart, throat and out through the top of my head. That symbol connected me to that moment. I could close my eyes, imagine the symbol and the feeling in my body would return. Body memory.
Art-ify your experience.
Take it from formless to form. Part of the reason we lose our moment of transformation is because it gets less and less clear as time passes. Sometimes we’ll even doubt it happened. When you take your experience and create, you bring it into form. You can paint, draw, sketch. Many times these experiences are pre-verbal. There aren’t words. There is only the experience. Words can fall short. Let color, shape and image be your reminder.
Connect to poetry or creative writing.
Words can crystallize the moment. Poetry especially is helpful because every word is important. It makes you boil down your message to the most potent form. You can chew it over until it is the perfect bite. There are endless styles of poetry from haiku to free form. Once you’ve got your poem, place it by your bed, on your vision board or somewhere you’ll see it daily.
Whatever you do, you need to remind yourself that this new you is the real you. It all comes down to remembering who you truly are.
Comment below. Have you had a transformative experience recently? What do you do to remember who you really are?
