We’ve been too long in the wilderness, lost, wandering around looking for the pieces of our shattered lives.

We’ve been told for so long now how to be, how to act, how to react, how to behave, how not to behave, how to feel, what to say, what not to say and over the years. Over our many lifetimes, we’ve been buried into deeper holes.

Until one day, we open our eyes, not the eyes of our head but the eyes of our heart.

We see all the barbed wire we have been encased in, all the cages we have been locked in. Then from the depths of our soul, we find ourselves screaming, a roar so deep we feel it vibrating through every part of our body. So loud and full of anguish, pain and suffering, the universe rocks with it’s piercing cry.

Suddenly we know we have to get out, we have to break free from these chains, these shackles, break open these cages.

Our survival instinct kicks in, to take flight or fight and nothing will stop us. Yet these chains and cages have been there for so long they have seeped into the very core of us, like the pins in a voodoo doll. We fight, we scream, we rage, we yell, we cry, yet the pins of our conditioning pierce us more, so embedded they are in our psychic tapestry.

Yet the screaming, the crying, the kicking has unleashed a flood of emotions – anger, rage, sorrow, grief, aggression – all vying to be felt, all demanding our attention. Now fully activated we unleash them on everybody and everything that stands in our way of escape and path to freedom. So we take flight, unconsciously into battle with our suppressed emotions as our weapons ready to fight the bloody battle.

Who is to blame for these chains and cages I find myself in? Well, men of course! The Patriarchy!

So we wage our war on man and his patriarchal construct. We hurl our judgement and blame in their direction, demanding he take responsibility for this mess we find ourselves in. He has to be held accountable for this injustice, this mass destruction of the feminine psyche. So we lead forth with our armoury, slashing and gashing at everything, and everyone who stands in our way of correcting this wrong. We will not stop until we reach the light at the end of the tunnel, that bubble of joy and happiness that is our birthright.

Seeking, searching, fighting until one morning, we wake, exhausted in a heap on the floor, feeling hopeless with no energy and still very much powerless. Still in the same black hole.

We thought it was right to go after the other.

Yet we realise all we’ve really done is gone into battle and waged that bloody war on ourselves. We’ve been fighting and flying away from the only person who could get us out of these chains and cages surrounding our hearts – me, myself and I!

So we sit in the darkness once again and finally surrender, waving our white flag and we embrace our dark night of the soul. We cry and cry and cry until there are no tears left, and in doing so we allow ourselves to open to our own vulnerability. With this opening and acceptance of allowing ourselves to be in this delicate and tender place, we feel the gentle stirrings of love and compassion. We feel the gentle beat of our heart once again, gently encouraging us to continue this journey of inner exploration.

We realise, with the flicker of a lightbulb moment, our heart has always known the way, we’d just forgotten how to listen and feel it.

Now, knowing and understanding vulnerability is actually our greatest strength and not a weakness as we’d been led to believe, we dare to explore our inner landscape. We allow ourselves to gently prod those powerful emotions lying dormant in the depths of our inner temple. Awakening them from their slumber to be felt once again, so they can be healed and released in a gentle and healthy way.

As we let go of these emotional chains and cages, we start to feel a blossoming within, a flowering touched with magic and beauty, caressed with love, a love of self we haven’t felt in a long, long time.

As we deepen into this inner journey we feel the gentle presence and embrace of our noble masculine, he who has been there all along.

He who has sat beside us in the darkness, silently waiting for this day to come, when he can hold once again his divine Shakti and support her in dreaming, creating and birthing the truth and beauty of all that She is.

With love,

Nicola x