Between 30 + 31 | I need no one. I need everyone.
I NEED NO ONE.
I NEED EVERYONE.
How as individuals, we are our own community of healing, but we need others to become our whole selves.
This is Lesson 2 of 10.
This is a series of 10 posts on what officially being 'in my 30s' has been looking like. How 9 months away from Bali birthed a whole new life for me. What it's like to stop rejecting love and fall into an incredible relationship. And, what the process of constantly evolving my businesses entails...
If you haven't read it yet, you can find Lesson 1, here.
So without further delay, here is the secone of 10 things I learned in between 30 and 31.
2 — I NEED NO ONE.
JUST KIDDING, I NEED EVERYONE.
I've come to realize there are no absolutes in life. I'm sure many of us have heard that phrase before. And for someone (ahem, me) who lives mostly bouncing between the black and white of life, I continue to find this "fact" a challenging aspect to level up and settle into.
As such, I've come to coin a term for the act of living between the absolutes in life that will hopefully help clarify whatever is grey in your life — I call it The Accordion Experience™.
The Accordion Experience™ is the act of expanding and contracting. Being social, then knowing when to be solo. Feeling connected, then moving through isolation. Hermit to hero. The idea is that we can never live in just one state forever, and if we can hone in on when we need to shift into "the other" state of being, we can do so with more ease, grace and personal INTENTION around it.
Which brings me to a few lovely stories when The Accordion Experience™ helped me see, work through, and sort my shit...
A few examples:
- I had to fall for a guy who continually ignited the flame and but never committed for YEARS in order for me to see my pattern of being addicted to rejection. It was through the expanding and contracting of that relationship, and isolating myself for weeks doing intense juice, water fasts and deep healing work, that I was able to clear that pattern and open myself up to what I truly wanted and now have — a wonderfully masculine partner ready to lead and co-create a balanced and healthy life with me.
- I had to join a crazy NLP practitioner - robot - program so I could see what it felt like to stand alone in a room of people who said YES, while I was the only person saying, UMMM ARE YALL OK? IS THIS SAFE? WHY IS EVERYONE SPEAKING THE SAME?
- I had to join a group of women learning about elemental healing in order for me to see I've been holding my voice back and making myself small with my gifts of teaching, healing and inspiring change in the lives of others.
- And it's through all these experiences (AND SO MANY MORE) that I learned how to detect when things are feeling good and in alignment with people and experiences, and when it isn't. Sometimes that realization is abrupt and obvious, most times it's NUANCED and subtle. Becoming keen to this, makes the world of difference moving through the constant change that is life and relationships in this world.
You see, The Accordion Experience™ is all about exposing ourselves and falling fully into experiences and people who then allow us to see ourselves more clearly, so we can heal that aspect of ourselves. When we are triggered emotionally or physically in situations of conflict, we can choose to work through them with the people involved, and then retreat into our hermit cave to work through the deeper depths and stories that inspired the root of the experience in the first place. And by doing so, we remove or shift one of the many blocks that's preventing us from living the life we actually want.
I KNOW, THAT WAS COMPLICATED TO READ WASN'T IT?
BUT THAT'S WHAT REAL PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT IS — PERSONAL WORK.
AT LEAST THAT'S ONE OF THE WAYS I DEFINE IT.
Essentially, we need people and experiences in order to see ourselves. Our traumas, unresolved stories, dramas, hurts and fears, and then we can go deep into healing them and creating a new frame of reference. If we want to.
At the end of the day, it always comes down to articulating and cultivating B A L A N C E.
— If all of this makes sense to you, drop me a HELL YEAH note in the comments below.
— If you're like HUH, WHAT? drop that message in the comments below too, I'd love to thread-chat it out more!
— And if you're feeling inspired to work on INTENTION, BALANCE, NUANCE and The Accordion Experience™, reach out for a one-on-one FREE personal consultation, let me know! :)
Thanks for reading and coming back to my space!
Ash x
NEW NEWS ALERT
I'm delighted to not only share that Acculturated Space 2018 is LIVE and taking enrollment applications, but to invite you to a FREE webinar on Monday, March 26, 8pm EST to hear all about it!
In the webinar you'll learn about:
- Acculturated Space and why it came to be
- How you can leverage practical tools for personal power and spiritual connection to help you to continually create an empowered life you'll love
- The Course overview — in it's entirety
- How to create your own Acculturated Space self-study experience
- and a SURPRISE BONUS for any live attendees!
So mark your calendars for Monday, March 26 @ 8pm EST, then head over to acculturatedspace.com and sign up to confirm your spot in the webinar.